


Legacies

by Dogsled



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Timelines, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Sex, Angels are Dicks, Awkwardness, BAMF Henry Winchester, Background Het, Bisexual Dean Winchester, Dean/Cas Big Bang Challenge, Demon Blood, Episode: s08e12 As Time Goes By, Episode: s12e10 Lily Sunder Has Some Regrets, F/M, First Time, Implied/Referenced Dubious Consent, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, Imprisonment, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, M/M, Men of Letters, POV Multiple, Premature Ejaculation, Sad with a Happy Ending, Sam Winchester's Demonic Powers, Secret Crush, Sexuality Crisis, Team Free Will, Temporarily Female Castiel (Supernatural), Temporary Character Death, Wing Kink, Winged Castiel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-11
Updated: 2017-10-11
Packaged: 2019-01-16 01:35:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 26
Words: 33,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12332835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dogsled/pseuds/Dogsled
Summary: Dean Winchester had never known anything else. Growing up as a Man of Letters just as his father and grandfather did before him, Dean was aware from a young age the responsibilities shouldered both by himself and his brother, each destined to one day become the vessels to archangels, and fulfil a prophecy as old as Creation itself. He isn’t happy about it, but then who would be? His father is consumed by the loss of his wife, and Sam is a willing participant in preparations for the oncoming Apocalypse, thrilled by the power of the demon blood that Dean is certain must be corrupting him far deeper than anyone can know.And then there’s the angel. Captured in Maine on the 23rd April 1901, the dazzling and beautiful Castiel influences three generations of Winchesters, and in perhaps unlikely circumstances, alters the path of each of their fates.Legacies is told from Henry, John and Dean’s POVs, and runs canon-adjacent to seasons 1-5, telling an alternate timeline story where, ultimately, fate is unavoidable no matter how stark the changes. More importantly it is a romance with a moral, that attraction is rarely ever just skin deep, and that when it comes right down to it? Love is love.





	1. Aperio I

**Author's Note:**

> Please check chapter headings for further clarification of warnings!
> 
> It's so exciting to finally be posting my DCBB. So many thanks to ricketyjukeboxer (ricketyjukeboxer.tumblr.com), my lovely beta. Go check out their brilliant Destiel fic! And to my artist Diminuel (http://diminuel.tumblr.com) who has been bringing this story to life with their gorgeous art, thank you so much for choosing to illustrate it, I couldn't be happier!
> 
> It's been a long time coming, so I hope that you all enjoy it. A couple things ahead of time: first, there are some uncomfortable threads running through this fic lightly regarding consent, Dean's sexuality and John's awful parenting among other things, but all of these are resolved (I hope!) by the end. Please don't lose faith part way in, I promise the pay off is more than worth it! As for the F/M categorisation, Dean gets to know (and crush on) Castiel while he's in his female vessel first, and part of the whole point of this story is to reinforce that it's Castiel him/it/themself that Dean truly falls in love with, and the shape on the outside doesn't matter. It's all there in the resolution. Trust the author!

\----- Aperio I (Henry‘s POV – Lebanon, Kansas; 17th September 1956) -----

Henry Winchester tensed at the bottom of the stairs, listening hard for the footfalls from above. He wasn't supposed to be questing around down in the vast bunker storerooms, but ever since he had been made a full member of the Men of Letters, such curiosity had repeatedly got him into trouble. His father had called it "The Winchester Curse". Well, his father wasn't around to admonish him about such things any more, and - if anything - the Winchester Curse was to blame for that, as well. That should have been the proverbial cautionary tale for Henry, but he simply couldn't help himself.

When nobody came down the stairs behind him, and he didn't hear his name called out, Henry continued to advance into the darkness. The rooms were stacked high with impossible quantities of old forgotten treasures, archived here after the Men of Letters had established the Lebanon bunker 15 years ago: ancient boxes carved with sigils, antique masks and urns, beautiful statues that probably contained the spirits of woodland goddesses. Henry made sure to touch nothing, licking his lips as he edged between the boxes, crawling deeper into the darkness.

Knowing he was getting close to the opposite wall, Henry carefully reached his hand out toward the raw brick. He felt the cool surface radiate toward him, just before his fingertips settled on it. Taking deep, slow breaths, and counting his heartbeats in between each of them, he felt his way along the wall, going deeper than he ever had before.

Suddenly the room was filled with all too much noise, a deep rumbling; loud, with an underlying screech to it that surely someone must have heard from upstairs. A gust of cold, stale air choked his lungs, and Henry froze like he was one of the statues. For a moment nothing moved, not even a dust mote, and then a soft, beautifully sad female voice came calling out of the darkness.

"Is there someone there?"

Nothing moved, certainly not Henry. He wasn't alone down here. He didn't recognize the woman's voice, but he supposed there was a possibility that she could be some sort of creature, abandoned down here in the dark with the other relics. Something that wasn't supposed to be let out, or disturbed for fear that it might escape.

Knowing the kind of things he'd seen, the kind of things the Men of Letters dealt with, that possibility was more likely than any other, and yet when no sound of approaching footfalls came from the chamber above him, and no further sound came from ahead, Henry pushed on into the darkness. Needing light, he reached inside his blazer pocket for the silver zippo lighter his wife had bought him as a birthday gift, and the candle that he'd brought down for exactly this purpose. Tiny sparks kicked off the flint, temporarily blinding him as he lit the taper's wick. Holding the taper slightly behind him, he squinted like a baby owl into the darkness.

She was half hidden behind stacked boxes, her black hair falling in lovely black ringlets that hid her face from him. For a moment, Henry thought that she was angled away from him, but then she turned her head in his direction briefly, and he saw pain in her heart-shaped face as she tried to look at him. The single candle must have been impossibly bright, he supposed, to someone who had been left down in the dark. 

In the small, cramped antechamber, Henry glanced around for somewhere safe to put his candle, deciding to rest it on one of the tin boxes. Desperate to return his eyes to the concealed woman, he melted wax onto the surface of the tin box, before placing the base of the taper deep into it, holding it steady for torturous seconds so that the wax could cool. By the time he looked back across the room, he was practically blind from staring into the flame again, while the woman’s eyes had begun to adjust to the change. She looked at him with stunning blue eyes, with such abject focus that he thought for a moment she was looking straight into his soul. Maybe, he considered - a chill prickling the back of his neck - she was.

It took real effort to look away from those eyes. When he did, Henry quickly felt ashamed of his distraction, for she was clearly naked, bound on what looked like a white cross, and protected from lechery only by the fact that assorted boxes had been stacked around her. It gave the appearance of her being just another piece of supernatural detritus picked up over the years, only to be stored away unwanted when her usefulness had ended.

Immediately, Henry drew closer, not with the intention of revealing her body - the thought never even crossed his mind - but to free her from the indignity of storage. He broke the boxes down, without glancing at her, and found at her feet a white sheet which looked like it had fallen there at some point, perhaps from some previous person covering her body. He gathered it, briskly, and reached up, awkwardly tying the corners of the sheet together at the back of her neck, then carefully pulling out the black strands of hair that he had accidentally wound into the knot. 

He shouldn't have been so close to her, not knowing what she was, or why she was bound here, but Henry was sure he felt a responsibility to ensure her comfort, considering he could not offer to let her go, or take her down. Only when he was done, did he again look at her, putting a safe distance of several paces between them again.

Her skin was pale, freckled in places. An aquiline nose and perfect white teeth finished a face which - in Henry's opinion - was quite the most beautiful face he'd ever seen. Past the gold colored cuffs engraved with strange symbols were slender hands--no claws or fur in sight. She could have been a nymph, or Aphrodite herself, were it not for the fact that Henry recognized the symbols which bound her. They were Enochian. This woman was an angel; there was no question.

For a moment, Henry really couldn't wrap his tongue around anything resembling words. Angels were in the lore that he had been taught, of course, but the Men of Letters had intelligence that suggested that angels had no interest in what was happening on Earth, unless it involved rogue members of their own kind. So long as they were not summoned, they intended to stay out of everything, including the demon threat. Henry found that immensely selfish - what use were angels if not to fight demons? - but the thought of angelic aloofness didn't even cross his mind when face to face with one; certainly not one that the Men of Letters had bound, and stacked away in a basement like so much garbage.

Instead he felt guilty, and just a little heartbroken. She looked so sad, so obviously lonely, that he wished nothing more than to set her free then and there. But he couldn't. The rules simply wouldn't allow it. As far as the Men of Letters were concerned, even as non-combatants, angels were still monsters, no different from anything else that they fought or exterminated.

The strangest thing, he realized with a sudden start, was that she didn't even look afraid. She didn't beg with him to set her free, or ask him questions that she presumably already knew the answers to. If she was an angel, then she knew who he was, and might even be able to read his thoughts.

"It's Henry, isn't it?" she asked, confirming his suspicions. "My name is Castiel."

He swallowed hard. Now he knew her name, he felt even more guilty that he couldn't help her. He flicked his gaze away toward the exit. 

"I should go. They'll be looking for me soon..."

For the briefest moment, he thought he did see fear in her expression. Certainly there was a twinge of it in her voice. "Please don't."

The guilt did its job. Henry stared at his feet instead.

"Please," Castiel continued, softly. "I've been trapped down here for so long. I haven't heard another voice in... in years."

Henry had no real conception of what that meant, not knowing that angels spoke to each other always, or that Castiel had been severed from that connection when she was bound by the Men of Letters. But he could understand the concept of long silences, and loneliness, and could empathize with how long and empty those years must have felt. It made him feel quite awful for even considering leaving.

"I can't stay for long," Henry said, diplomatically. "I shouldn't be down here. I don't have clearance."

"Then just stay as long as you can," Castiel pressed. "I can tell you when the others are coming, but please... Please stay."

The desperation in her voice soaked into Henry's chest, tightening it with emotion. He edged a little closer again. An angel couldn't possibly hurt him, and she was bound, paralyzed behind the sigils on the cuffs. Henry's brow furrowed with concern.

"How long have you been... How long have you been trapped down here?"

"Fourteen years, two hundred seven days, eleven hours and twelve minutes."

The specificity of her reply surprised him. Henry supposed she must have counted every second. It matched up, more or less, with the opening of the Lebanon chapter house.

"And nobody has spoken to you in all that time?"

Castiel hesitated, clearly wondering whether to implicate another person in the same rule breaking as Henry was party to. "There was one man who visited for a while. He taught me to play chess." She nodded to a dark corner of the chamber, where Henry now saw there was an old chair, and a chess board resting askew against it. "He was very old, and frail; I suppose he must now be dead."

Henry wondered if he'd even met the man she was speaking about, then dismissed it. It didn't matter who had come down to talk to her, only that she hadn't spent quite so long on her own as fifteen years.

"We can play, if you like?"

"I'd like that," she answered. "Some other time. I would like to know more about you, Henry."

Henry briefly considered challenging her on the suggestion that he would risk coming down here again, but very quickly had to acknowledge that she wasn't wrong. He was intrigued by her, and in some ways it felt like a pleasant secret, something he could keep to himself which could harm no one. She had a soft, kind voice, and he already liked her company far more than the jostling Boy's Club that made up the majority of his colleagues.

"What do you want to know?" he asked.

There was a long pause, as Castiel thought about her question. "I suppose... What kind of weather do you like the best?"

The question was unexpected. Henry had expected something questing, or deeply personal. The weather? It was like she was reading from a rulebook concerning how to structure small talk.

"Is that really what you wanted to ask? About the weather?"

"Yes," she answered, firmly. "Should there be a reason why not?"

"No," Henry stammered. "It's just... The weather. It's not the most interesting thing about me."

"Then tell me that," Castiel suggested.

Henry was flummoxed. He faltered, suddenly incapable of thinking of anything about himself that could be considered remotely interesting. The weather would have been an easier topic to start with. He went back to Castiel's first question.

"I suppose I like the rain," Henry said. His uncertainty gained some focus, however, as he fixed on the idea. "I like the smell of the earth once the rain has started to soak in deep, when everything is verdant and thriving. It smells like life."

As he spoke, Castiel took on a glazed look, so Henry continued, treading carefully, watching her daydream with utter fascination.

"I like to stand under a tall tree, or on the porch, so that I may watch the rain fall around me without feeling a drop on my head. I like to close my eyes and just listen to the sound the raindrops make falling all around me. John loves the rain too; always has. He likes to jump in all the puddles. Drives his mother crazy coming in covered head to toe in mud."

Castiel's eyes refocused. There was a distinct curiosity in her attention now.

"You have a child?"

"A son," Henry answered, wondering when the conversation had turned so personal after all. Had she done that on purpose, to get information about his family? Of course not. What could she do, shackled down here? But he still felt immensely protective of John. The idea that he might endanger his life just because some monster made tempting company...

"I don't mean either of you any harm," Castiel said, addressing Henry's rising insecurities directly, and only making him more paranoid.

"I can't know that for sure." Henry felt defensive now; trapped. "What if you--"

Castiel interrupted him.

"You have to go," she said, her voice rough. He could have sworn that she was disappointed, but she was also urgent--pressing. "Go now."

Henry didn't even feel like he had the chance to reassure her that he'd be back. She seemed so convinced that he should leave - and straight away - that he rushed out the door without a word. No sooner was he out of the basement did Patrick appear, looking grim and flustered.

"Where the hell have you been, Henry? Joseph has a solution to the clotting problem. He wants you to take a look at it."

"Sure thing."

But Henry was thinking of the angel he'd left in the basement, the candle he'd forgotten which would burn down to nothing and then go out, leaving her in lonely darkness all over again. He cursed himself for getting defensive. She'd just wanted to know more about him. The thought of a little drizzle was probably the most exciting thing to cross her mind for more than a decade. 

And John? Well, John was the most interesting thing about Henry Winchester. His son; his little boy; his legacy.


	2. Imperio I

\----- Imperio I (Dean‘s POV – Lebanon, Kansas; 22nd March 2005) -----

Being a legacy was a piece of crap.

Dean hated it. He hated all of it. Sure, being an American Man of Letters was six thousand times better than working for the Brits - there was a good reason they'd staged a second Independence, not least because the American chapter had a whole hell of a lot more monsters to put down, a Biblical Apocalypse on the cards, and didn't need to compound that by killing off half their conscripts - but that didn't mean he had to like it. For one thing, it made him restless. Oh, and there was the fact that, as of right now, his brother was sucking down demon blood so that he could be possessed by fucking _Lucifer_.

How was that okay? How had they even gotten to this point?

Dean knew how, obviously. It was prophesied. He and Sam were both supposed to be the vessels of archangels, and that was just how things were always meant to be. Served up on silver platters, surrendering their bodies to Heavenly forces that would rip them apart with the power they thrust inside them—and no, that wasn’t an innuendo. But it was important. If they didn’t box Lucifer up now, then the whole thing would just happen without them, sixty years down the line, and perhaps this time there would be no one around to stop him.

It was a great plan, technically speaking, except it included giving the angels what they wanted first, giving them Dean, giving them his brother.

John cared. Of course he cared. Still, he'd followed along with their plan so far for a perfectly good reason: Azazel had killed his wife, the hunter Mary Campbell; taken Sam and Dean's mother from them. Locking Hell once and for all, guaranteeing that no other family suffered at the hands of a demon? He would risk everything for that. It was his duty.

His duty as a legacy.

Sam stopped for breath, lowering his third bottle of demon blood to the desk in front of him and grimacing as he resisted the urge to vomit it all back up. Dean, meanwhile, worried his bottom lip, wishing that he could just upend the table and put an end to it all.

"One more," insisted Lizzy. Dean thought her voice was shrewish, but it was probably just a combination of resentment from that one time she'd blown him off, and the fact that she was a total bitch.

"He's had enough," Dean hissed resentfully.

"He's had enough when I say he's had enough," Lizzy snapped back.

Dean fell silent again, seething through his teeth as she put a fourth bottle in front of Sam. He could stop this, hit her - again - but given that he was already on probation from the last flurry of rule breaking, it wasn’t a great plan. So Dean watched--watched as his little brother, whom he'd been ordered to protect, scrunched his eyes closed and started on his fourth bottle.

Fortunately for Dean, someone else spoke for him.

"He's had enough for today, Liz."

"Sir--"

"I said _enough._ Give the kid a break."

John came down the stairs, pushing a hand back through his graying hair. He looked tired, although no less tired than the day after their near fatal crash. Dean had no idea how any of them had survived it, but he'd woken up in the bunker feeling fine the next morning, even though the Impala was a complete write off. The higher ups had refused to allocate any budget to restore her, insisting that the Impala's thirst was bad for their budget. That, and there was a reason why airbags were such a popular invention.

It didn't sit right with Dean, but then a car was just a car. These days, he drove a Camaro--and she was _beautiful._ Not that Michael would give a shit what car he drove when he came knocking for his man-stocking.

"You okay, Sam?"

John clapped his youngest on his shoulder, sidestepping Dean and focusing completely on Sam. Dean had long since gotten over being jealous about it. Sam was the golden child. Hell, maybe they were all just buttering him up so that he didn't run for the hills--not that he'd get far. Sam had run away before. They always found him. But there had to be a certain amount of asskissing going on when you were asking someone to willingly let the devil in, and John was always more than eager to do his bit.

They shouldn't have bothered. While a young Sam had dreamed of having a life far away from the duty and chaos of the Men of Letters, the once forbidden dusty tomes in the library and promises of world-righting destiny had finally grounded him. He was going to save a world, be a hero; Sam was relieved to have a purpose, excited to do what he'd been born to do. It was only Dean who seemed to think it was fucking unfair. And stupid--stupid, too.

Oh, they didn't want some other chosen child becoming Lucifer's vessel and running roughshod over the world. Sure. That was their excuse. But Dean couldn't help but think that the best way to deal with a prophecy wasn't to jump in with both feet. If they both just refused, who was going to stop them?

Well, other than the Men of Letters, the demons, and apparently the angels too?

What was the point of the world existing without free will? No matter what, Dean and Sam didn't have any, wouldn't ever have any. Their lives had been chosen for them, by their parents, by powers beyond their control, by fucking _God_.

But, Sam and Dean were pulled along with the indomitable tide. They had no choice. If John had said "drink up" instead, Sam would have sat at the table until he'd finished every last drop.

"Go ahead," John instructed. "I know you've been practicing. Show me something new."

Sam looked straight at Dean, and he felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle at the intense focus. Whatever Sam was doing, he was pretty sure he wasn't going to like it. Sure enough, his hands raised up off the table in front of him, and Dean found himself yanked to his feet like a marionette heaved upright by strings. Panic struck through him, a sharp jolt of it, as his brother spun him around, his limbs flopping wildly. Helpless, Dean spun first one way, then back the other, before at last he was dropped back into his chair.

The second that feeling returned to his limbs, Dean was back on his feet again, storming away. He could hear John cheering Sam, chortling and patting him on his back, but Dean wasn't impressed. He was _humiliated_ , upset and angry, storming down into the basement where he could kick things and sulk. His hiding place, full of half forgotten things with no purpose, was just like him.

When Lucifer was in his new cage, Michael wouldn't need him any more. The world would go on without Dean, the broken child, second best to an extraordinary, strong, bright younger brother. How could anyone possibly shine when they had to stand next to Sammy?

Down here in the dark was where Dean kept his secrets, his own plans to run away, a life he longed to have when this was all over.


	3. Miraculum I

\----- Miraculum I (John‘s POV – Lebanon, Kansas; July 16th 2006) -----

John knew the creature in the basement very well. He'd been introduced to her years ago, a forgotten relic of time gone by. He'd been the first, after his wife's death, to suggest that angels might be involved, pointing out that the Princes of Hell were Lucifer's, and that the only reason Azazel would have been involved was if Lucifer himself was somehow involved as well.

The question - to which John had been unexpectedly given the answer - was how to find out how much the angels knew. They'd dragged Castiel up from the basement, thereafter spending more than a year performing experiments, torturing her, and digging through the old notes that had been stacked in nearby boxes. She hadn't been very forthcoming. In fact, it was almost like she knew nothing at all. Eventually John had suggested that they hack into her programming, and for years they'd left her like that, all but braindead, reciting whatever she heard over what she called "angel radio"--at least until the point where the angels cut her off. The Men of Letters knew she was in pain, but since she was a monster, none of them particularly cared. 

When her usefulness waned, John had Castiel returned to the basement. The boys were older, and ever more inquisitive, and he had no intention of them ever seeing such a gruesome thing. He didn't ask whether or not the spikes were ever pulled out.

Tonight, all John cared about was the fact that his son was dying, and there was no spell, no healer, that could make him better. The angel’s gaze followed him around the room, watched him with unsolicited sentiment as he made his way back to his broken son. 

The truck that had sideswiped them had hospitalized John as well, and left Sam as walking wounded. Dean had taken the brunt of it. Pale and near death, half his face an ugly bruise, Dean lay comatose in the main room, hooked up to machines that beeped a steady, futile rhythm. Medicine had failed him, so that left magic, most of which in a situation like this could only make things worse rather than better. After bringing the prone angel up to join them, he'd had the room locked and warded to keep the creature trapped inside.

Sad blue eyes found John's, and John, to his horror, saw only understanding there. Not pain. Not anger. Not hatred. This creature, that he had personally tortured, used, savaged, not caring if he had left her in agony for decades--it understood why he'd done what he'd done, and it wasn't even upset about it.

That, at least, was what was conveyed between them before anyone said a word. Unsurprisingly, she was the one who spoke first.

"You will have to release me from my bondage. I need access to my grace to heal him."

Even though he was the one who had chosen this solution, John still wasn't sure. It may not have been making a deal with a demon, but it was close enough, letting a monster cast a spell on his oldest child. Yet that was why he'd banished everyone else from the bunker. One way or another, either he and Dean walked out of here alive, or neither of them would.

"You aren't going to try and bargain your way out of here?"

John held Castiel's gaze for a few seconds too long and regretted it, lowering his head. The angel looked right through him in a way that was just too disturbing.

"There is no bargain I could make that you would keep. But perhaps if I prove that my good will doesn't require reward, you will consider, at least, not...not putting those things back into me, when we are done. That's all I ask."

John sighed, and shook his head, moving toward the chair. "I can't promise you that. I can't promise you anything. Let's just...let's just do this." Before she changed her mind.

"This must seem like a great deal of risk to you," the angel said, as John undid the shackles on her wrists. "I can only assume you love your son very much to do this for him."

"Kid thinks I hate him."

"Even so, he is very fond of you. He wishes you spent more time together, doing family things, celebrating--"

"Enough. Enough with the therapy bullshit. Get on with it."

"As you wish."

Dean never saw his healer. And she never told him what John did for him that night, either. Inexplicably, he woke from his coma fully healed, bearing neither scar nor memory of those terrible few days.


	4. Aperio II

\----- Aperio II (Dean‘s POV – Lebanon, Kansas; April 19th 1988) -----

Dean's first crush began when he was just nine years old.

This hadn't been the life his mother had chosen for him. John and Mary had had a house, a family car, a plan, and while one was the daughter of a hunter family, and the other a legacy of the Men of Letters, neither had intended for the supernatural to be their children's only future. Instead, they wanted to make the world a safe enough place, recruit enough manpower that Dean - and any children they might have after him - could choose to live another life if they wanted to.

For that to happen, they needed to grow up as normally as possible. They needed to play soccer, play with plastic guns, go to school dances, and do 4-H. Suburban life and their monstrous work were supposed to be separate.

But the monsters had come to their home anyway.

John had abandoned their house, and Sam and Dean grew up in the bunker, in the safest place that John knew, buffered from the outside world. They attended school, of course, but there was no soccer, no school dances, no 4-H. Dean was taught to use a gun before his sixth birthday, and by his ninth, he was efficient in several with an eye for accuracy.

At first, the bunker had been exciting, but as Dean grew up it became a prison. Sam minded it less; he loved books, and the computer technicians showed him how the enormous machine in the hub worked, filling the five year old's head with the thrill of applied mathematics early on. But Dean was an adventurer. He didn't enjoy being confined, wanted to play sports, go on school trips. There were only two things about the bunker he liked (okay, three, if you included the well stocked kitchen): one; the map room, which promised that there was a whole world waiting to be explored, and two; the basement, full of boxes, dust, and hidden walls. It was like a pharaoh's tomb.

Unsurprisingly, Dean was pretending to be Indiana Jones when he crept down the stairs and began his usual creeping around in the dark. There was a meeting in the map room, and he and Sam had been banished to their shared room. Dean had sprung down from the top bunk lightly enough and, telling his brother that he'd bring him back a box of Lucky Charms if he kept his mouth shut, snuck out and down the corridor.

It was a surprise when the stone opened under his hand, although given the other secrets he'd learned about the bunker, not wholly. The man who had drawn all the runes that protected the building was, apparently, quite the warlock and had built in storage in all sorts of clever ways.

This was another store room, although not just of boxes. Dean fumbled for a moment with his flashlight, then shone it into the darkness, almost jumping out of his skin when his light flitted across a woman's face. There were some sort of giant needles sticking out of her head in all directions, making her look like the most terrifying pincushion that Dean had ever seen; a monster from a movie he wasn’t remotely old enough to have seen.

But she didn't move when he shone the light on her, nor even seem to register him, sitting shackled in a chair, staring ahead with sightless blue eyes. Old blood was crusted in her hair and on her clothes. If Dean didn't know better - and he did - he might have thought that she was a ghost, given how pale she was, how deathly.

If not for his sense of adventure, he would have turned around right then. Instead, Dean crept forward, nervous, and reached out to touch her hand where it was chained to the arm of the chair. Though she was tangible, and therefore real, she still didn't move, like a gruesome statue. Dean felt sorry for her. The expression on her face looked like pain, no doubt because of the spikes going through her head.

No adult, fully inducted Man of Letters, nor even a hunter, would have considered doing what Dean did next. But he was a nine year old boy, and one who, despite the odds, was merciful and empathic. He reached up, hands shaking, and began to pull out one of the spikes.

Castiel cried out.

Dean tumbled back, falling over on the stone floor. His torch went out as it rolled away, leaving him in darkness, just the echo of her scream bouncing between his ears. It took several frantic moments to find his torch again, patting it against his hand until it worked. Trembling all over, cold with sweat, Dean nervously put the torch on top of one of the boxes. He gathered up a pile of shredded fabric from the ground, and approached the woman. Despite her cry, her eyes were still sightless. She didn't look at him.

"I'm sorry to do this, but if you scream I can't help. Please don't be mad."

She still didn't look at him, even as Dean stuffed the strips of fabric into her mouth. The next time she screamed, the sound was muffled, at least enough that Dean was able to pull the rest of the spikes out, figuring that - like a bandaid - it was better to pull them out fast. When they were all gone, a small pile of spikes on the floor beside him, Dean pulled back, putting a little distance between himself and the woman, just in case she was mad.

He still had no idea what she was. Maybe she was a witch, or a werewolf, or a vampire. Maybe, he realised, he should have left the spikes in her head, just in case they were keeping her from escaping somehow. But he couldn't leave her to suffer like that, not sitting here in the dark with nobody to talk to, and even less freedom than Dean had.

It came to him quite suddenly that, while he was staring at her, she had begun to stare back, a new lucidity in her gaze. 

"Um..." Dean began, finally. "You can spit the cloth out now. But please don't be loud. I'd get in trouble if they knew I was playing down here."

She spat out the cloth, struggling with it for a moment, then sucked in a breath, wetting her dry lips with her tongue.

"Do you need anything? Water? I could get you an aspirin..."

"Aspirin?" It was the first word she said, and Dean could only try to hold his nerve, squirming on the spot.

"Um. For the pain. For your head."

She still looked confused, but after shaking her head, she told him "No, but thank you. I just need rest."

"I'm Dean," Dean said suddenly, for no other reason than nerves. It was polite to introduce himself, right? And maybe she would tell him her name. It seemed like it was important to know.

"I'm Castiel," she answered, softly.

"That's a pretty name. Are you sure you're not a witch?"

Cas shook her head. "I'm not a witch."

"Oh. Oh good, then! That's okay. I'm not supposed to talk to witches."

Cas smiled. It was a weak effort, exhausted as she was, but Dean appreciated it nonetheless. She was actually kind of pretty, especially when she smiled. He came a little closer, still nervous.

"Why are you down here?"

"I suppose I outlived my usefulness."

Dean grimaced. "So they just left you in the dark?"

"It would seem so."

"Were you lonely?"

This time, before she answered, Castiel paused. She looked to Dean to be thinking deeply, like she wasn't completely sure whether or not she had been lonely. It was obvious to Dean though. How couldn't she be? She'd been left down here without anyone to talk to her. Even Dean had Sam to talk to when he was sent to his room, whether they had anything much in common or not.

Finally she shook her head. "I was, before. I don't remember much of anything since I was taken upstairs last time. I don't even know how long it's been."

Dean chewed on his lip, then sat down on the floor. "It's okay. I can talk to you now. Not for long, though. I gotta take Sam Lucky Charms, but I promise I'll come back. Hey, maybe I'll bring you some Lucky Charms too. They're my favorite... Well, after pie."

Something fleeting passed across Castiel's face, but after a moment she smiled another strained smile, and nodded. "I'd like that," she said. Followed by "What is 'pie'?"

Dean grinned.


	5. Imperio II

\----- Imperio II (Dean‘s POV – Lebanon, Kansas; 22nd March 2005) -----

"That was fucking messed up," Dean snarled, once he and his brother were alone.

"What?"

"You. Putting your hand up my ass like I was a fucking puppet."

Sam flushed. "I didn't put my hand up your ass. Don't be disgusting."

"You used an Unforgivable Curse on me, Sam. How the fuck am I supposed to feel about it?"

Sam didn't say anything, but he didn't have to. Dean knew that his brother thought his actions justified. As much as Sam had fought back against their father's orders over the years, Sam was thoroughly comfortable obeying. He liked to prove himself wholly capable of independence, yes, but he preferred to be led. He wanted to impress their father just as much as Dean always had, even if he hid it better.

Dean just knew better than to talk back, that was the only difference between the two of them.

As usual, Dean had to cut Sam some slack, or else put up with his brother sulking about it.

"You wanna just maybe warn a guy next time? Try waving your wand and saying _Imperio_ like a real dark wizard does."

"A dark wizard?"

"Dork wizard more like."

It was easier to make out like he didn't care, even when inside Dean was distraught. His little brother was becoming a monster. If drinking vampire blood made you a vampire, then what was demon blood going to do to Sam? Would it even be reversible if he stopped?

Worse than that, though, was the fact that Sam liked it. He liked the way it made him feel. He liked the power. Dean struggled to remember if he'd always been that way, or if maybe it was a consequence of demonic influence. Whether or not the blood was responsible didn't really matter. Sam just wasn't right, and Dean was the only one who cared.

Dean sat on the edge of his bed and dragged his hands forward from the back of his neck, breathing out his frustration as he did. When he looked up at Sam, he deliberately put his regret and fear behind him. He could overcome. It was what he was good at, shuffling away how he felt about things and putting other people first.

"I just don't get why you don't use your magic for the power of good. I mean for one thing, you could at least zap us up a couple of beers."

Sam accepted the change in tone without even questioning what it cost Dean to make it. Or maybe, like Dean, he was doing what was easiest too. He leant back against the door frame. "What, and save you having to walk to the kitchen when it's the only exercise you ever get?"

"Ha. Man, you are so funny."

"I am?"

"You think you are." 

"Great. Then when all this Lucifer stuff is done with, I've got a future career in comedy. Good to know."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I can see it now. 'That moment when you're the vessel for the fucking Devil!' So relatable."

"Totally relatable," Sam laughed. "Who hasn't been possessed by Satan these days?"


	6. Visitatio I

\----- Visitatio I (Henry‘s POV – Lebanon, Kansas; July 28th 1957) -----

"Queen to King's Rook One. Check."

Henry moved the piece and glanced back up at the angel. They'd spent increasing amounts of time together. Henry had made an excuse about cataloguing the things in the basement, and since then, he'd been free to come and go as he pleased.

Between games of chess, Castiel had taught Henry Enochian. Henry, in return, told her stories about the outside world, kept her abreast of the news - war, mostly, these days - and the health of his family. After John, he and Millicent had begun trying for another baby, so far without any success.

Henry moved his rook to King's Bishop One and called the move out to the angel, then came to sit in front of her, looking quietly up at her.

"Tell me about Heaven."

Cas was quiet for a moment; distant, Henry thought, appearing as though her mind were elsewhere. She did that often, as if anywhere else were better than here, and he didn't particularly blame her for that. He couldn't imagine her existence in this room while he was gone, and the guilt of leaving her alone for long periods of time was staggering. When he was at home, playing with his son, he thought of her sitting here in the dark and felt all the worse for it. Monster or not, she was suffering, and it was at moments like this that he was most aware of it.

"You don't have to, if it's too painful..."

"No, it's fine. It's just... I miss it. It's my home, and I haven't been there, truly, in so long."

Henry nodded. He tried to stay quiet rather than risk interrupting anything she might have to say. Eventually Castiel spoke again.

"I suppose it is beautiful. A beautiful place. Souls who go to Heaven live in their best memories; the most peaceful. Often that means that they're with their families. Others...enjoying a sunset, climbing a mountain, flying a kite. We guard the souls in Heaven. Sometimes angels even walk in those memories. At the center is a garden. It's where we feel most at home; closest to God."

"What is He like?"

Henry froze. Castiel looked hurt and then miserable, and her eyes fell to the ground in front of her. When she looked back up, Henry was even more stricken by how sad she looked.

"What is it?" he asked, his trepidation reaching his voice.

"I have never met my Father. Few angels have. Since being here, I have begun to wonder...wonder whether He is even still here at all."

"You think God's gone?"

"I've been abandoned here. Tortured. I have been cut off from Heaven. Doesn't He care about me? This suffering... How can this be what He wants for me?"

Henry tilted his head, and said something he knew would puzzle the angel the moment he spoke. "That's very human of you."

"Pardon?"

"You're having a crisis of faith. 'How can God want me to suffer?' Humans worry about these things all the time. It doesn't mean He's gone, just because He hasn't come to save you. Perhaps you have another purpose here, or maybe He's waiting for you to save yourself. It's up to you to find out what it is He needs from you--not what you need from Him."

Castiel stared at him as though the explanation confused her. For a moment, Henry thought he had overstepped his bounds. Lecturing an angel about faith... What did he know about it? He barely had any faith himself, after what he'd seen. Heaven and Hell were real; he didn't _need_ to believe in any of it. But for an angel to have lost faith was sort of disturbing in a way that Henry couldn't quite name.

He expected her to laugh at him for his gall.

"Is this how humans feel all the time?" she finally asked. "Not knowing whether or not God is real, or angels?"

"I wouldn't know," Henry answered, softly. "I've known the truth for as long as I can remember, like you. But...even if I didn't believe, I would have known the face of God in those of my children. They are miracles to me."

"Biology is simply complex chemistry," Castiel told him, softly. "Your cells reproduced as they were programmed to..."

"There's no chemistry to souls, though, is there?"

"None that you can measure," Castiel said, neither - to Henry - agreeing or disagreeing.

Henry sighed and shook his head. He wasn't entirely sure whether he had convinced Castiel that humanity suffered any less from their lack of faith as she was suffering now. In any case, he retreated to his original point.

"Even without knowing, human faith in God has persisted in its different forms for thousands of years, despite a great deal of suffering. You've been here only for a fraction of your lifespan, and, given that I was told that you were some sort of warrior, I suppose I imagined that your will would be stronger than this. You have always seemed indomitable, given the injustices that you have endured--at least to me."

Again, Castiel stared at him. When she broke the silence, it was with a renewed vigor in her voice:

"Queen to King's Knight Two. Checkmate."

Henry smiled. "Shall we play again?"


	7. Visitatio II

\----- Visitatio II (Dean‘s POV – Lebanon, Kansas; February 14th 1994) -----

Dean stuffed his school bag in the room he shared with Sam, briefly voicing his irritation - as usual these days - with the fact that he was still sharing a bedroom with his brother. Sam was ten years old, but you wouldn't think it by the way he acted. Books filled every possible surface. They were on the desks, on the bookshelves, and a stack of them had even migrated to the foot of Dean's bed. 

Dean tossed the offending annals on the floor, not even just to be contrary, intending to remind Sam that if he had the entire room, Dean was going to at least have his bed to himself. Not that Sammy would get the message. Their dad, of course, would tell him to move them, then not follow up on it. John had his head in something these days, and Dean could only imagine it was pretty serious, given how his father had regressed to the kind of parenting ineptitude that had occupied him for the first three years after their mother's death.

But Sam could have the room. He could bury his nose in books, the stuff Dean often pretended he didn't care about. In truth, Dean wasn't stupid, and he could research with the best of them, but that didn't mean that he found it the most fun thing to do in the bunker. He preferred active pursuits, getting to go face to face with monsters. Someday, he wanted to go with his father on an exorcism, rather than watching them dispatch hunters to do the jobs for them. If they knew all this stuff, why shouldn't they just exorcise the ghosts themselves, after all?

And there was one other thing that kept a fourteen year old boy busy, of course.

Girls.

Or in this case: a woman. One so completely out of his league that Dean knew it was stupid to even think about it. She wouldn't be interested in him. After all, she was an _angel_. Literally.

After shedding his stinky clothes and topping up on a fresh splash of his dad's aftershave (Dean didn't have to shave every day yet, but he didn't want her to see him at anything but his best), Dean headed down the stairs into the basements, found the hidden door, and went inside.

She was waiting for him, the same as she always was, dressed in white and still cuffed to the chair. She looked up when she heard him, her dark curls framing her pale face, her eyes almond shaped and - to a teenager - intoxicating to stare into, knowing that she was looking right at him-- _only_ at him.

"I came as soon as I could. Mr. Hopkins kept us after class. I don't even know why Dad sends us. It's not like I need a high school diploma to read dusty old books forever."

"He probably just wants you to live a normal life," Castiel answered with the kind of certainty behind her tone that came from long conversations with Dean where Dean did most of the talking, coming to his own conclusions.

"I know, I guess," Dean said, dropping down into the chair opposite Castiel. He was already unsettled and he squirmed in his seat for a moment or two before reaching into his jacket pocket.

"I made this for you."

It was a white envelope. Dean opened it for her with shaking hands, his cheeks as pink as the card that was inside. The card, decorated with crudely cut red hearts, said "Happy Valentine's Day" across the middle, and Dean showed the front of it to her, holding it between his face and hers so she couldn't see the embarrassment in his expression. He was already regretting this.

"There's um, there's a poem, but I don't have to read it..."

Cas was stunned, but not so much as to let Dean off the hook that easily. He'd written her a poem? Nobody had ever done that before. Nobody had written any hymns to her either, but the angels of the days of the week weren't so worshipful as Michael and Gabriel. She smiled, and leant forward.

"Please read it? I would like you to."

Dean was hesitant, even so. He chewed his lip for a moment before coughing, drawing the card back toward him. He knew the words by heart, for he'd written them, but suddenly he needed the reassurance of the written word to be sure he wouldn't screw up.

"If you... I mean. Okay."

Taking a deep breath, Dean began. His voice warbled a little as he spoke, breaking at the beginning of each sentence.

_"Roses are red, violets are blue_  
When you fell from Heaven, I fell for you.  
Violets are blue, roses are red  
If I didn't have you, I'd be better off dead.  
Daffodils are yellow, carnations are pink,  
I have one heart to give, and that's why I think  
If roses are red, and violets are blue  
This Valentine's Day, I give it to you." 

When he was done speaking, Dean sat and stared at Cas, chewing through his lip.

"Well? What do you think?"

Castiel didn't have an immediate answer. Maybe she didn't know much about poetry, or maybe she was confused as to why Dean would write it for her.

"Is this a human tradition?"

"You don't know about Valentine's Day?" Dean asked, just a touch heartbroken. Cas was an angel. She was meant to just understand, not make things awkward. And this - or rather Dean - was awkward.

"It's February the 14th. People...um. They give each other gifts and cards, people they lo...like. It's romantic."

"I see. And you like me? Romantically?"

"No. Yes. I mean...I guess so."

"I don't... I don't want you to think that you would be better off dead without me, Dean. That doesn't sound romantic at all."

Dean blushed. "It rhymed, that's all. I don't really mean it like that. Just like I can't give you my actual heart. It's symbolic."

"You seem disappointed. Why?"

Dean slumped in his chair. "I suppose maybe I thought it would mean something. Like maybe you liked me too. I've been planning this for weeks."

Castiel looked hard at Dean, giving visible thought to how to respond. Maybe she could tell that his feelings really were hurt, but she wasn't sure how to fix it.

"I do like you too, Dean. You saved me when I was left in more pain than I have ever known, and abandoned in the dark. If my heart belonged to anyone, it would be you. Only you."

Dean lit up like Broadway. "You mean it?"

Cas nodded, and Dean pulled himself back out of his chair, coming closer, laying the card down on the stack of boxes beside her.

"There's something I want to ask you," he said, his tone taking on a more earnest note than before.

"What is it?"

Dean tripped over his tongue. "Well I...I wanted to know if I could... If I could--" he blurted. "I wanted to know if I could kiss you?"

"I'm sorry?"

Dean was immediately defensive, not hearing the question in her tone. "Nevermind. It was a stupid idea."

"No, Dean. I just don't understand. What do you mean 'kiss me?' Is this another Valentine's Day tradition?"

A little more shyly this time, Dean perked up. "Yes. Yeah, it's a tradition. So can I?"

"If it's a tradition," Cas agreed.

Dean nodded, all too eager and optimistic. He'd kissed a few girls, now and again, but it was a whole other thing to get to kiss Castiel, whom he'd been obsessed with for years. It was like getting to kiss a celebrity, something so distant and hands off that it simply didn't seem possible, and yet Cas had said he could. She said it was okay. Dean still felt like he was lying to her a little in order to get his way, but it was only a tiny little white lie. People kissing each other on Valentine's Day wasn't really a lie. They did. It just wasn't a rule.

It was still a little awkward leaning down to kiss her where she was still bound to the chair. Dean didn't dare overstep his bounds, the way he might have with girls his age. He didn't touch her cheek, or drop his fingers into her hair, even though he'd dreamed about kissing her that way most of the last year. Instead he lowered his head, craned his neck, and brushed his mouth lightly across hers.

He didn't expect her to respond, and she didn't, not much more than parting her lips to take a breath. It was over too quickly. Dean pulled away before the nerves could completely overwhelm him, smiled shyly, and dropped his hands back into his pockets.

"Was that good?" Cas asked, puzzled.

"It was perfect," Dean answered, grinning.

He wouldn't shake that grin for days.


	8. Miraculum II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello readers!  
> This chapter references/implies non-con. As John establishes in the text, he believes that the character involved is all talk, but it's possible I didn't make this clear enough in the text. However! You can skip this chapter without disrupting a fluid/concise reading of the fic, so if you have trouble with the subject matter in any way please do so!

\----- Miraculum II (John‘s POV – Lebanon, Kansas; March 13th 1984) -----

John stared at Kincaid, eyes narrowed ferociously. He was livid, so many different shades of furious that he probably lit up the whole spectrum. Kincaid was stupid, boarish, and crude, and John had hated being around him even before Mary's death. Now, though, his temper was at breaking point.

"You have an angel. Seriously? An _angel_? You didn't think to mention this before?"

"Honestly? Most folks have forgotten about it. She's not even in the catalogue of gear that's down there. If I hadn't been down there looking for a demon killing blade, I wouldn't even know she was there. And man... She is super hot. You should have seen what I did to her."

John narrowed his eyes, his hands curling into tighter fists at his sides.

"So you what? You felt up an angel? You ever heard of blasphemy, Kincaid?"

"Not like she could fight back."

As disgusted as John was, he knew it was all talk. Kincaid might talk crass, but he was also shy, and a coward. He'd ask the angel about it, though, just to be sure.

"Get her out of storage," he said. "High time we had a little chat."

Kincaid grudgingly accepted John's instruction and head out of the room--just as a small, dark head appeared in the doorway. John stood and headed toward it.

"Dean... Dean, you shouldn't be in here. Where's your brother?"

Dean's eyes moved from John's down to his shoes, and then, resentfully, he looked off in the direction of their room. John had to assume that Sam was in his cot. It wasn't like Dean would ever actually tell him: he was mute, and hadn't said a word since the fire that killed Mary.

John would be lying if he told anyone that he found his son's silence easy to deal with. If anything, the person he lied to most about it was himself, but he knew better. It was heartbreaking. He loved his son, but Dean was broken, and John couldn't bring himself, really, to face it. In any case, the psychic he’d consulted insisted that Dean would grow out of it with or without his help, so he threw himself into his work, pretending it made up for his failings as a parent.

"Alright. Okay, let's go check on Sam together, huh?"

Dean flung himself onto John's legs like a limpet, a five year old weight that couldn't be budged. It was quite obvious that Dean didn't want to go back to his room, but John didn't want his son around when they brought the angel up here. He didn't want Sam or Dean anywhere near angels, or demons, or anything else like that, legacies or not.

"Dean..." John sighed. He hated doing this, but he had no choice. Finding out about what the yellow eyed demon's plan was was far more important than cuddling Dean and telling him that everything was alright. That could wait. There'd be time, when this whole nightmare was behind them.

So for the time being, just for a little while, John had to be distant. He had to keep his head down, just so that he could get all this out of the way, and when his wife was avenged and Yellow Eyes was dead, he could give Dean all the cuddles he needed, take him to baseball games, watch cartoons with him--be a Dad again.

He just had to do this first.

John crouched, gathered Dean in his arms and wrenched him off the floor. He pulled Dean against his chest, and looked him hard in the eyes.

"I mean it, Dean. When I say you gotta stay in your room and look after your brother, then you do what you're told. I need you to do what you're told, alright, Dean? The sooner you get good at following orders, the sooner we'll get the thing that killed your mom. We gotta work really hard at it, okay? That means you too."

Dean only looked miserable, his eyes already filling with tears again. John gave Dean the slightest squeeze, then set him down. He could hear footsteps coming up the basement stairs, and knew that Kincaid would have the angel with them in a matter of moments.

"Go back to your room. Elizabeth will bring you dinner in a bit. I'll be in to see you before lights out."

When Dean was gone, John turned back into the room, shaking his head. "What are you doing bringing her in here? I don't want my sons anywhere near that thing."

"Nobody asked you to bring your kids down here, John," Kincaid snapped. Sweat clung to his brow, only going to prove how out of shape he was.

Unable to help his curiosity, John moved back across the room. The angel was shackled with her arms behind her, a white sheet wrapped around her body, held in places with safety pins. She was, as Kincaid put it, "hot", but John could care less how attractive or unattractive she was. She was just a source of information, and John already knew that he would have to use force to interrogate her. 

Not something he was looking forward to. But it had to be done.

She looked right through him when their eyes met, as if she was looking into a familiar face, looking at someone she already knew. Probably an angel thing. In any case, John found it disturbing, a crawling, guilty feeling working under his skin. Torturing an angel was probably blasphemy. He was going to go to Hell for this.

Needless to say, John never made it to see his sons before bedtime. Not that day and not for many days after.


	9. Visitatio III

\----- Visitatio III (Dean‘s POV – Lebanon, Kansas; June 6th 1997) -----

He didn't want to be here any more.

Dean was miserable. To be fair, he had been for years, feeling like he was second best to his brother. When his father could spare any time to be invested at all, that time was always spent on Sam. It wasn't like Dean didn't apply himself, either. Even without the personal attention, he did his best to be a good son and a good soldier. He learned the most he could about the supernatural, even tried to learn Enochian, though he struggled with it.

He wanted his father to care about him too, wanted John to be impressed by his efforts and, just one time, tell him that he'd done a good job. 

But in twelve years, that hadn't so much as happened once.

"I'm running away," he announced to Cas the second he was in earshot. Carrying an electric lantern, Dean strode across the room, irritation vibrating off his tensed shoulders. He was still wearing his outfit from prom, a revolting sky blue suit that his date had liked. The highlight of the evening, though, had been speaking to his father when he’d come home fifteen minutes after curfew. Everything had taken a swan dive in quality since then.

"You're leaving?"

"That's what I said, isn't it? I'm sick of it. I'm sick of not being good enough for him."

Castiel was quiet. She was waiting for Dean to carry on speaking, to explain what had him so upset. It was usually something his father or brother did. Once or twice in the long years that they had been friends, Dean had mentioned his mother, but it was rare. Not because he was ashamed of it, but because he still wasn't sure he'd come to terms with what her loss meant to him. It had changed the outcome of his entire life.

"Dean."

Dean didn't answer her. He paced back and forth across the room, set his lantern down, then paced again.

"Dean, talk to me. I'm here."

Striding across the room one last time, Dean finally stopped pacing, halting behind his usual chair in the middle of the room.

"Dad says I'm not going to college. This whole time I've thought... I thought that maybe I'd be able to get away from it. I kept my head down, I did a good job at high school, great grades--they even offered me a scholarship. Not much, but...but the point is they _offered._ I've got a place if I want it--and I _do._ I want it."

"Your father doesn't want you to go," Cas prompted. Really, she was only listening.

"He says I'm needed here. What? To babysit Sam. I'm not even allowed out in the field. I told him I'm ready, but he says that's not what we do. I don't get it. What's the point of knowing where the monsters are and just..."

Dean shook his head and slumped in the chair. He was running out of steam, but no less distressed.

"I just need to get away from all this for a while. I just need... I can't keep on like this, Cas."

"Where will you go?"

"I don't know. Canada? I don't know where I can go that he won't find me."

"He is very resourceful."

"The Men of Letters are. They have satellites now. I mean. Not have have, but..."

Cas was lost again. "Satellites?"

"Exactly," Dean continued, oblivious. "They can track me."

"I don't think that running away to Canada is a wise solution to your problem, Dean."

Dean sighed, rubbing at his temple. "I don't know, Cas. Where do _you_ think we should go?"

That certainly shut Cas up for a moment or two. "We?"

"I'm not going without you. I'm gonna break you out."

It felt like forever before Castiel spoke again. "Is that a good idea?"

Dean chewed his lips, sobering a little. It was a whole terrifying thing to consider, running away. Breaking Cas out was another enormous thing. Dean was courageous, but not that brave. Not yet, anyway. As much as he was hurting, breaking Castiel out of the basement, sneaking her past his brother and his dad, then running for the border, was all just too much to consider.

"No," Dean finally conceded, looking sadly up at Castiel for the first time since he'd walked in. "I don't even have a plan. I just think it's unfair. It's unfair that he's keeping me here. It's unfair that they're keeping you down here..."

"I have been here for the better part of a century, Dean. Eventually you will move on from me, find a wife, raise children. We both know it."

"No," Dean insisted. "No, I won't. I want you. I've always just wanted you, Cas."

"You're attracted to the girls you go to school with," Cas corrected. "You have attended dances with them. As I understand it, it is healthy for humans to be attracted to those of a similar age to them."

"So what?"

"I am a great deal older than you, Dean."

"Twice my age, maybe."

Cas sighed. "Not this vessel. Me, Dean. The angel of the Lord, Castiel. I am far older than this woman."

"I still want you," Dean insisted. "I don't care how old you are. I don't care that you're a...not human. It's not important. Just that you're you." Dean placed his hand on Cas' knee, and looked up into her face earnestly. "I don't want anyone else."

"You say that now," Cas answered, shaking her head. "But I am an inappropriate focus for your affection. I can't be what you need me to be."

Dean reached up to touch her face, his expression focused and serious. She looked back at him. In a heartbeat, the moment had transformed, and Dean was leaning closer, trying to draw Cas in, in denial about what she was saying. He loved her - not that he'd ever use the word - and she was trying to drive him away. He wasn't an idiot. He could tell what her motive was.

"I want you," Dean repeated. "And you want me too. I know you do. You kiss me like you want me too."

"I kiss you the way that you taught me to," Castiel reminded him. "And because you like it."

Her eyes were partly lidded, fixed on Dean's mouth, and Dean mirrored her expression, practically crawling into her lap. He bumped his nose against hers, and she exhaled against his mouth, a soft, forgiving sigh.

"You like it too," Dean told her, from a breath away. His lips almost touched hers as he spoke. In return, she only made the slightest affirmative noise, before engaging in the kiss, tilting her chin up and dragging her lips across Dean's.

Dean deepened the kiss himself, and Cas parted her lips, letting him press their tongues together. It was a sweet, tender kiss, and when Cas broke it off, Dean settled back, moving into his own chair again, scrubbing at his already raw face.

"I wish I could just let you go," he said, again. "I don't like doing things like this. I don't like kissing you while you're still tied up. It's messed up."

"It's okay," Castiel told him, voice dropping nearly to a whisper, as reassuring as she could make it. "It isn't ideal, but I don't mind."

"It's still messed up," Dean sighed. "It's super messed up."

"I gave you permission," Castiel insisted. She was soft spoken, even though she spoke judiciously. "And I can rescind it. You have to consider the possibility that there may be a life for you in which I do not have a place."

"Wait--wait, no. Please don't do that."

"Dean..." Cas stared up at him. "Dean, I don't think you should come back."

"No way. No, and you can't stop me, either. You can't get rid of me that easily. And if I'm gonna be stuck here, then you're stuck with me too. I can't... I can't do it without you, Cas. You get that, right?"

Castiel still looked disappointed, but she only shook her head. Dean pressed on.

"I'll stay, okay? I won't run away. I'll... I'll pay more attention to the girls, if that's really what you want. But as soon as I come up with a plan, we're both getting out of here. However long it takes, okay? You've been down here long enough. You've suffered enough."

For some reason, Cas still looked sad when Dean looked back up at her, much like she knew something that he didn't.


	10. Imperio III

\----- Imperio III (Dean‘s POV – Lebanon, Kansas; January 14th 2007) -----

"Does anyone here want to know what I think? Huh?"

Sam rolled his eyes at his brother, obviously simply unable to help himself. Hah, like Dean believed that. Dean had been complaining for weeks--which was why they hadn't told him about it right away to begin with. Sam was already on a litre a day. The Men of Letters were nurturing his powers, getting him ready to become the leader of this supposed demon army. It was bullshit, as far as Dean was concerned.

It seemed to him, most of the time, like the Men of Letters wanted the Apocalypse to happen. They were preparing Sam to become Lucifer's vessel, after all, meaning they wanted to raise the devil, something which - in Dean's opinion - would be better off not happening in the first place.

But they'd told him a thousand times before: This way, it was under control. They could monitor the whole thing, decide when Sam said "Yes", and in the long term control the demons. Dean just wasn't sure he believed it.

He wasn't sure he believed the Men of Letters had the best of intentions for Sam. In fact, he had nightmares that their plan was to put Lucifer in Sam's skin and then torture him for information.

Honestly, given the worst he'd seen of the organization over the years, the shame was that he wouldn't be particularly surprised.

But Dean found it disturbing. Sam wasn't supposed to be able to exorcise demons by touching them, or throw people across the room with his hand. Sam was his little brother, little Sammy, the baby he'd held in his arms when he'd fled their burning home and fallen into this nightmare in the first place.

And Sam loved it. Sam loved being more important that Dean. He loved having this new, burgeoning power, and this exciting destiny, and when Dean drew him aside and tried to knock sense into him, Sam had just told him that he was jealous, an idea that made Dean feel sick to his stomach.

He was losing Sam, he knew he was. With every passing day, he became more distant. He was also becoming defensive and mean, coupling it with an overblown and disturbing confidence that reminded Dean of the demons they'd tortured. Sam was getting cocky, which coupled with his already overachieving nature, was drawing him down a dark path.

Dean knew what it was. At the moment, though, he didn't want to name it. To name it would be to make it real; to admit what his brother would become if he wasn't made to stop. But who would stop him? Dean? That would mean disobeying his father and he wasn't suicidal.

"Fine, then. Go ahead." Like it was for him to give permission at all. The planning continued without him, Sam sipping on blood occasionally and grimacing.

Dean retreated to his room. He didn't want to hear any more of it. It was hard to imagine any situation where he would be jealous of Sam for what he was going through. So what? So he had demon killing superpowers--it didn't mean much when he literally had to do a deal with the devil for them.

When the meeting was over, Sam came to join him. There was no hint of demon blood on his lips, no blackness creeping into his eyes, but Dean still thought that there was something predatory about the way his brother looked at him when he sat down at the end of his bed.

"I've got to do my part, Dean. You know that, right? This is about saving the world."

"I don't care," Dean said, scornfully. "If what it takes to save the world is to play along with this bullshit, then the world doesn't deserve saving. The demons took mom--"

"And that's why I'm going to wipe them out," Sam said. "And don't act like the angels are innocent in all this. They're in on it too. Just cause you're soft on your girlfriend--"

Dean froze, staring at Sam who had stopped speaking suddenly when he realized his mistake. "What did you say?"

He sat up slowly, clenching his hands into fists in the bedspread, already feeling the blood rushing to his face. He was embarrassed, like Sam knowing about his secret was shameful somehow, but what was considerably worse was the fact that Sam knew about Castiel and had never mentioned it.

"How did you know?"

Now, though, it was Sam who looked shifty, who was fidgeting uneasily in place. Rather than answer, his brother stood up and head for the door. Dean was there first, shoving Sam back.

" _How did you know?_ "

"You don't want to know."

Dean pressed again, pushing against Sam's chest, fury taking over for humiliation. "How did you _fucking_ know, asshole!?"

"I read minds now," Sam said cooly.

"You..."

Dean felt faint. He grabbed for the door frame, head quirking to the side as he tried to get what he was hearing to make sense. He repeated it back to Sam instead.

"You _read minds_? And you just read mine? No big deal?"

Sam didn't say anything. He didn't apologize. He didn't blame Dean for having loud thoughts. He just shrugged and stared right ahead.

"How is that okay?"

Sam was ready for him. "How is it okay that you're snogging angels Dad has tied up in the basement? Did you forget what she is, just cause she's pretty?"

"It's none of your business!" Dean snapped, furious.

"That's not how I see it," Sam answered. "Now I can read minds, everyone's business is my business, Dean. You don't have any secrets from me."

If anything was blackmail to be held over his head, that was it. If Sam told his father that he was planning to run away with Cas, he'd kill her, then hold Dean over the coals for it. Wordlessly, he stepped aside to let his brother pass, something dying inside at his helplessness. Distantly, he was aware that Sam was spinning even further out of control, but any concern he had for Sam was dwarfed for his fresh worry for Castiel. Sam knew about her now. That meant that, at any moment, she could be used against him.


	11. Imperio IV

\----- Imperio IV (John‘s POV – Lebanon, Kansas; February 2nd 2007) -----

John didn't need Sam to tell him that there was something going on with his eldest son. Not that he had paid as much attention to Dean as he ought to have over the years. 

It was true though, that while Sam had to be strong in order to beat and perhaps overcome the Devil, Dean’s destiny was to be weak; his destiny was to break.

Not that it was Dean’s fault. No. It was just the way the chips had fallen. Not that John, newly imbued with this knowledge, had failed to see the warning signs. After his mother’s death, Dean had stopped speaking for years and when he did begin to talk again, it was only to Sam at first. No. Dean was fragile. It only made sense considering the paths their respective destinies would take.

John didn’t have to like it, but it did make spending any amount of time with his kids painful. The more the Men of Letters had deciphered about the oncoming Apocalypse, the more difficult it was.

In other ways, it made it easier. Sometimes there were tough lessons that needed to be taught, which, had John raised his boys quite the way that Mary had wanted them raised, he would have found so much more difficult. She, after all, had believed in angels.

John? Well, it wasn’t called ‘believing’ when you knew something existed. He hated the feathered sons of bitches. Azazel might have done the burning, but Heaven had been complicit in his wife’s death. If they were so powerful, after all, that they could drop an archangel onto a prophet at a moment’s notice, he’d be damned if they couldn’t have kept a closer eye on his sons, especially considering how supposedly important they were meant to be.

But Dean? Dean didn’t have the same hatred of angels that John did. Oh, John knew all about Dean's relationship with Castiel, the angel in the basement. In many ways he’d been letting Dean coast on that one, just because Sam’s training had begun to take up more of their time and energy. Still, this was the enemy, and Dean had forgotten it. Angels were the reason his life was the way it was; they were the reason he didn’t have a mother, didn’t live in a two-up-two-down, didn’t quarterback for the football team, and had no future to speak of.

Angels were the reason that Dean was going to Hell, and he shouldn’t be using them for escapism. He should hate them. That made Castiel a teaching example. He could show Dean what angels were really for, the only use that they could ever have to Men of Letters, the only thing they were good for.

Steering his son’s shoulders, John pushed Dean into the antechamber, the one that his fellows tended to call “the dungeon," but in many ways served as a multipurpose room. There had been a billiards table taking up most of the space for a few years, but it was hard to torture a demon when their mind was on the wrong kind of swing.

In the center of the room, tethered to a point on the floor by chains which bound her wrists, was Castiel. The chains were just short enough that she was forced to bow her back slightly forward, looking up through her tousled black hair at them. She wore one of John’s white shirts, hastily wrapped around her to preserve her modesty.

The moment Dean saw her, he turned to stone under John’s hands and then he resisted, pushing back against John’s grip defiantly. It wasn’t so successful. Instead, Dean was pushed forward, guided to stand several feet in front of the angel, who averted her eyes rather than look at either of them straight on.

“You know each other,” John said firmly. It wasn’t a question, so neither of them responded. Dean knew better than to beg at this point anyway.

So John pushed on. “Did she whisper sweet nothings in your ear, Dean? You know what she is, don’t you?”

This time it was a question. “She’s an angel.”

“She’s a monster,” John corrected, sharply. “The difference is, demons got black eyes, so you know they’re evil. Just cause some book tells you angels are on your side—it doesn’t mean anything.”

“Please, Dad—“ Dean began.

“Please? Please nothing. You’re gonna learn something. The Bible’s just Twilight for angels. Dress ‘em up pretty and pretend they’re good and wholesome; it doesn’t make them any less monsters.”

“Castiel isn’t a monster,” Dean said fiercely. It was as defiant as he’d ever been in his entire life, and John had to step away, just to get a look in his face. He really believed it.

“What color are an angel’s wings?”

Dean blinked at him, confused.

“What color, Dean?”

“White.”

John stepped toward Castiel, and bent, whispering in her ear. The words were Enochian magic, a trick that traders of supernatural ingredients had learned many centuries ago. At once, Castiel’s wings spread. They were tired, matt, many of the feathers falling out, thin and weak from lack of use. She hadn’t flown in almost a century, after all.

And they were black.

Dean gasped.

Perhaps, John realized, he wasn’t gasping at the color, but merely the sudden appearance of the wings, the way they simply opened from nothing from behind Castiel’s back. Maybe it was the state of them, bedraggled and wan, limp in the already dull light. Against John’s will, Dean moved forward, crossing to Castiel’s side, kneeling in front of the chair.

“What happened to them?”

_That_ wasn’t the right question. John glared at the back of his son’s head, watched with horror as Dean reached out, fingers extended to touch Castiel’s wings. He looked right at her, asking for permission, John thought, before actually brushing them against the feathers.

“Are you kidding me? I show you this abomination’s wings and all you care about is what happened to them? _People_ don’t have wings, Dean, _monsters_ do.”

“Angels do.” Again, Dean sounded breathy. He was still looking into the angel’s eyes.

“And I suppose that makes it okay?” John snapped.

Dean wisely didn’t answer him. John pressed on. “Last week, seven people died when angels started infighting with each other at a truck stop in Indiana. Yesterday, one of them derailed a train, just to chase down a demon that was using it.”

“Not Castiel,” Dean replied, not so much as looking over his shoulder.

John had had enough. When he moved toward the chair, all in a rush of sound and fury, it was enough to send Dean skittering back like a rat in the sunlight. He kept that low to the ground, as well, to avoid any blow that might come his way, only straightening up when he was out of range.

“Don’t fool yourself. If she was out there, she’d be killing people too. It’s what they do. It’s what all monsters do, Dean.”

“They’re fighting to stop whatever’s happening with Sam,” Dean said, bitterly. “At least _someone_ is.”

A stone dropped in John’s stomach. Whatever his plan had been to shake Dean of his angel crush, it had failed. Big time.

“There’s a plan for your brother, Dean. You have to trust me.”

“I don’t want any part of it. Putting the devil in Sam’s head is _fucked up_ and you know it. You _know_ it!”

John had no answer to that. If anything, he had to accept that at this point, rather than bring Dean in deeper and show him how the plan was going to proceed, he would need to try even harder to distance him from the plan for his brother. It was the only way.

“Get out,” John told him, simply.

Dean might not have hesitated, given that command, on any other day, but he shot a glance toward the angel, as though he genuinely feared for her.

“Don’t hurt her…” he began.

John opened his mouth to reply, but the angel beat him to it.

“It’ll be okay, Dean. Just go. Go.”

It was most certainly not okay. When Dean was gone, John turned back to the angel, baring his teeth. “You think you can talk to my son? You don’t get to talk to my son.”

An angel would always heal, eventually, but John made sure that it would take a lovely long time. It wasn’t like he could punish Dean after all, but Castiel? She was a monster. She deserved it.

At least, that was how John justified himself. The truth was, he needed an outlet, needed to hurt something, and Castiel was there, a brutal fact that he felt guilty for the moment the rage cleared and he was forced to look at what he’d done.


	12. Imperio V

\----- Imperio V (Dean‘s POV – Cold Oak, South Dakota; April 30th 2007) -----

Dean had no idea there was going to be a competition. No, not a competition. It was a fucking _bloodbath._ They had Sam kill a whole bunch of other people. _People._ Not demons, not monsters. No. Sam killed his fellow competitors, all in order to win the role of Azazel's champion.

But Dean was the only one who was oblivious. Dean was the only one who, on finding Sam missing, panicked at the absence. Dean was the one who, on finding out that the facts were being withheld from him and him alone, made sure his father regretted it.

"Sam isn't a killer!" he'd spat, and he'd punched him right in the face. Nobody had stopped him storming out. He should have realized that that was part of the plan too.

Sam stood over the last survivor, the easy victor. Pumped up on demon blood, the others hadn't stood much of a chance. The man was bloodied and exhausted, close to death, but he looked up at Sam with fierce challenge in his expression. As defeated as he was, he hadn't given up the fight, a man who desperately wanted to stay alive, nothing less.

Dean crossed the torn earth between the ruined bridge and his brother. Sam was trembling, holding back on his final blow, stilled by Dean's presence and the command that Dean had given that he stop. There wasn't a drop of blood on him, as if he'd slaughtered all his opponents without touching them. But he was holding a knife now as he towered over his challenger.

"Just stop, Sammy. You don't have to do this. You remember? Remember what it was like before all this started? You and me. It can be like that again."

"I don't... Dean. Don't you get it? I have to do this. I have an army to lead."

"A _demon_ army. You're not a demon, Sam. You don't have to do this. You don't. You can just stop and this whole Apocalypse thing goes away with you."

"That's not what Dad said. It's not what they think. They said it's gonna happen no matter what."

He needed Sam to listen. He'd been indoctrinated his entire life, prepared for this moment. Now Dean only had seconds to get his brother to cooperate. "That's a guarantee if you go along with it, Sam. But you can stop this right now. You can say 'No'. To this. To Lucifer. To everything."

Sam faltered, lowering his arm, his attention pulling back toward Dean. "I don't... I don't know how."

"I'll show you, Sam. You're not alone. You've got me. Just... Just come over here. Let me take you home."

He should have been watching the man on the ground. As Sam turned, all he could feel was relief that he was snapping his brother out of it. There was hope.

And then that hope fractured into a million pieces. The man on the floor surged upward, seizing the knife out of Sam's hand, As Sam turned back to face him, stunned, the man drove the blade straight into his brother's heart.

Dean screamed, charging forward, blearily raising his gun to fire at the man as he retreated, but it was too late. He was gone, and Sam slumped lifeless in his arms, already dead long before Dean crashed to his knees with his brother held against his chest. His wails didn't bring Sam back.


	13. Imperio VI

\----- Imperio VI (Dean‘s POV – Lebanon, Kansas; May 4th 2007) -----

Dean couldn't breathe. Every time he tried to, the pain only came worse than before. Sam was gone. He'd failed. He'd gone to save his brother and only ended up getting him killed. If Sam hadn't been distracted... Sure, he'd have killed another person, but he'd be alive now. One step closer to the world ending, sure, but _alive_. Dean was the one who had fucked it up. _Some rescue._

He'd hightailed it back to Kansas, too ashamed of what had happened to tell his father, or anyone else before he got there. So too did he keep the secret of why Sam had met his end when, teary eyed, he'd thrown himself at his father's mercy for a solution, a way to bring Sam back.

"That's not how this works," John had told him, firmly. "If he's gone, that's because that's the way it's meant to be. He wasn't the one after all."

Dean was horrified by the answer, by the callousness of it. John didn't love Sam at all, he thought, and if he'd never loved Sam, then how could Dean have ever imagined that his father would have time for _him_? His son was lying dead and John just didn't care.

Which meant that Dean had to find the solution himself.

If only after John’s treatment of Castiel, Dean had gone to see her again. If only that had been his first port of call. But he had been too humiliated, too embarrassed after what he’d witnessed, feeling – shamefully – that if he was so incapable of giving her the freedom she needed he lacked any worth at all.

Instead of an angel, Dean sought out a demon. He’d long known the capabilities of demon deals, knew what it would cost to bring his brother back. It was a price worth paying. Sam was the hero, after all. Sam was the one who was supposed to save the world. How could Dean possibly hold a candle to that?

Besides, if there was half a chance that bringing Sam back to life would get him out of this deal with Lucifer, then that was a sacrifice Dean was willing to make. He would sacrifice his own life to let his brother be a normal adult, even if the chance had already passed for him to be the normal kid he'd always wanted to be. 

Even if it meant he gave up his soul.

And Dean? Well, Dean went straight to Hell. He didn’t pass Go.


	14. Interlude

\----- From Hell (Dean‘s POV – Hell, Hell; Eternity) -----

Hell was indescribable, but Alastair? Dean had plenty of words for him. Many of the epithets made use of the words “ass," “fucker," or some combination of the two. Sometimes, for variety, Dean ascribed to a description of his engagement in fellatio. Alastair told him he had a dirty mouth, and so, like a 1930s housewife, he washed it out with copious amounts of soap.

At the end of their sessions, when Alastair was bored, and Dean was struggling just to raise his head, Alastair would brush his cheek with his hand. It was gentle, reverential, and had Dean ever been touched with compassion he may have easily fallen for it. But the gentle touch felt more alien than anything else. It was what kept him strong when Alastair told him that it would all end, if only Dean was the one who picked up the knife next time.

And yet as the days blurred together, that single touch on his cheek began to feel less and less strange. It became a warm spot in a constant nightmare, in torture that had begun decades ago and only just lead to the application of genuine physical pain. Alastair taught him, likely inadvertently, that monsters could be kinder to him than his family.

And oh, how much kinder! When Dean did pick up that knife, Alastair cheered him, patted his back, sang softly in his ear. He celebrated Dean’s first cut, and guided the ones that came after. He encouraged him to do his best work, and when Dean needed instruction, did he shrug his shoulders and walk away, or put someone else first? No. Alastair _mentored_ him.

It was better than being on the rack. The simple presence of the demon reminded him, at all times, what it would be like if Dean were to backtrack on his commitment. But it wasn’t truly necessary. The simple matter of it was that Dean liked it. He came to enjoy putting his knife into people. He enjoyed causing suffering to the people who deserved it. Most of all, he was eager to lap up any and all praise that came his way.

As time went by, it made him feel less sick, less broken, to simply accept it. No. No, it was worse than that. He took pride in his work. In some terrible way, he was becoming just like them; like Alastair; like the demons.

If he thought too hard on it, it would hurt. So instead, Dean just didn’t think about it at all. Easier that way.

Alastair sing-songed at him as he approached the cell—Dean’s one hideout from the constancy of Hell’s cruel bombardment. Sort of. While he was safe here, the time alone could also be a kind of torture. Being alone with your thoughts in a place like this was almost worse than the alternative. 

“Ready to come and play?”

_Almost._

Dean rolled his eyes toward Heaven. As usual, there was no answer, but he couldn’t bring himself to look straight at Alastair either. His former torturer turned his stomach into a block of ice just by standing too close. Dean hated him just as much as he hated what Alastair had turned him into. He dragged his eyes away from the ceiling and headed for the door.

Somehow though, when Alastair touched his cheek, it felt like comfort. Dean still hated the black eyes that he looked into, but now he thought he might hate them for a different reason entirely. One way or another, looking into Alastair’s face made him feel like he was looking into a mirror.

Maybe that was why it was comforting? Finally, he felt like he belonged somewhere. Finally he felt like he had a purpose, a future, a destiny. He was going to become a demon and there was nothing at all that he could do to stop it.

Nothing that anyone could do to stop it.


	15. Imperio VII

\----- Imperio VII (John‘s POV – Lebanon, Kansas; May 5th 2007) -----

Sam was furious.

“You won’t let me summon a demon? How are you planning to stop me?”

John shook his head. “You think Dean went to Hell just so you could trade places with him five minutes later? We’ve been over this, Sam. You’re the one the world needs. Dean… Dean’s right where he has to be.”

“In Hell. _In Hell_? You can’t be serious.” Sam span around. John wasn’t alone, the entire group had assembled to help settle Sam down. With his new, well-fed powers, it might take all of them to stop him, if need be. Piper had a taser, and Sullivan a drenching spell which would temporarily render Sam powerless. They were last ditch options.

But Sam was already cutting through the smoke and mirrors that had been there his entire life. John could see it in his eyes, the way he focused and glared at each of them in turn. He was reading their minds.

John knew then that he had no choice but to tell him the whole plan.

“There’s a prophecy,” John began, carefully, as Sam’s scrutiny moved to him. “Lucifer won’t break out of the Cage until all the seals on it have been broken.”

“And then I’m supposed to just let him in,” Sam finished, in his own lame way. He’d come to accept that part. But he pushed right back anyway: “Why not just stop the seals from being broken in the first place.”

“It’s not that simple. For every seal that needs breaking, there are nine more that might be. And these seals are eternal. We’ve been over this part before. If we don’t let Lucifer out now, while the omens are right, our window closes, and in the meantime, he just waits it out for the next cycle, whenever that happens to be.”

Sam shook his head anyway. “What’s that got to do with Dean?”

Here, John paused, but for every second he didn’t speak, Sam inflated like an ever hotter, ever pinker balloon.

“Dean breaking in Hell is the first seal, Sam.”

“I thought Dean was Michael’s vessel,” Sam answered, sharply.

“And we thought that too, but it turns out he doesn’t need Dean specifically, just a Winchester.”

Sam caught on quick. “You?”

“Only if we can’t put Lucifer back in the box without him,” John answered, bitterly. Truly, the idea of letting an archangel inside him was repugnant. He felt the same way about his sons being possessed, but if it was a means to an end then it was worth the sacrifice.

“This is stupid,” Sam said sharply. “This is just… This is just so stupid. If Dean…breaking—if Dean _breaking_ in Hell – what does that even mean? – is the first seal, then what the fuck is the point in letting him go there? You should have stopped _him_ summoning a demon.”

“I’m sorry, Sam. I am. But this is the way it has to be.”

For a moment, it seemed like Sam was about to continue arguing, but after a few seconds where he merely glared at John, Sam’s gaze dropped away. The thing was, Sam was pragmatic. He always had been. He’d given up on his dreams when he’d found out about his destiny, and it was agonizing to John that he was so noble, so willingly sacrificial, when it came to saving the world. His sons were both good men, but Sam was magnificent, and Dean… Dean had just been eclipsed by him.

It was sad, in many ways. Dean, after all, was the more obedient son, but it was through questioning his orders, and largely agreeing with his logic, that Sam followed his rules far better. John appreciated the difference between them, but he wished in general that this life hadn’t driven so large a wedge between the three of them.

Still, they were doing this, giving up their freedom as a family, so that others wouldn’t lose the same. It would be worth it if no other child had to watch their mother burn because a demon had come into their home in the middle of the night.

John had that conviction. He needed to. And so did Sam, now.


	16. Visitatio V

\----- Visitatio V (Dean‘s POV – Pontiac, Illinois; September 18th 2008) -----

When Dean crawled his way out of the ground, he wasn’t thinking about Hell; he didn’t even remember it. All he knew was that the soil was claustrophobic, closing his throat, making him beg for light and air. He crawled instinctively, clawing for daylight, dragging the ever increasing weight of his body in the direction of looser earth.

It was only when his hand found air that the panic really set in, digging deep into his constricted lungs, which screamed for a mouthful of air even though the earth clamped tight around him. It wrung him harder even as he dug through looser soil, every cell in his body screaming in agony, begging for breath. His entire effort went into digging to freedom, and as Dean lay there on his back, spent and sucking in deep, desperate breaths, everything he had forgotten crashed back in as his mind spun toward blackout.

All the years he’d spent in Hell, the torture he’d endured, the singsong mockery of Alastair, day to day, the fear that he was slipping, becoming one of them every time he picked up a blade… It was crushing. It would be enough to make a man want to die, if not for the knowledge that if he did, surely he would find his way back to Alastair’s rack.

There was no escaping it, no escaping the way the memories weighed him down, making it impossible for Dean to contemplate standing again. It would be too hard to face the world, to be normal, to eat and drink, or even just speak to people again. Would they be able to see the broken man behind his eyes?

Because that was what had happened: he’d _broken._

Somehow, though, the pain on his shoulder cut through all the others into his sphere of awareness. For all the past agonies, the freshest was here and now: a searing handprint burned onto his shoulder.

So why was he back? How had he been dragged physically out of Hell? A Men of Letters spell? No. An act of God? Was that _God’s_ handprint left behind on his shoulder? _Hah_ , he doubted it. Still, whoever had saved him wasn’t around here now, and if they expected him to wait around and be grateful, then they had another thing coming.

Dean was done with it, with all of it. He had a second chance at this stupid life, and it didn’t include Apocalypses, or God, or anything else. For one brief, agonizing moment, Dean thought of Sam and his destiny, and of Castiel, still bound in that basement, a beautiful creature locked away from sunlight and air. But he couldn’t go back there. If he did, he’d find himself back in it, dragged under. The plan obviously didn’t need him. They’d left him to rot in Hell, after all. So why should he go back? So that he could die again? Even for Sammy, Dean couldn’t allow that to happen. He wasn’t going back to Hell. He _wasn’t_.

Fortunately, the guilt wasn’t so hard to bear. Dean’s freshest memories were of Hell. He had spent forty years in the darkest pit the universe knew, spent more time amid those screams than he had lived on Earth. Life before Alastair had a distance to it that made it feel stilted and unreal, like a photograph in faded colors. Letting go of them was like mourning for a distant relative, someone you’d met once, but barely remembered. It was grief at arm’s length, easily brushed aside.

So he ran. He ran until God’s fucking vengeance came after him, made him bleed out his goddamn ears, feeling like his head was going to explode. In a motel in a town called Avery, it came at him so loud that he passed out, and when he woke up again, there were strong arms wrapped around him, and a familiar scent, like the cool fresh scent of ionized oxygen after a thunderstorm.


	17. Visitatio VI

\----- Visitatio VI (Dean‘s POV – Avery, Idaho; September 20th 2008) -----

“It’s okay, Dean. I’m here.”

The voice was unfamiliar, but it was calling him by name, speaking reassuringly. A warm hand, soft and comforting, teased back through his hair, applying just enough pressure to help with the lancing pain in his head. Well, mostly. Dean still struggled to open his eyes even so. When he lifted his eyelids, bolt lightning jumped through his pupils, simultaneously blinding him and making his head hurt anew.

But he needed to see. He needed to see who this man was, holding him, because in the brief flash he’d seen, blue eyes and dark hair, it had seemed to him that he was looking at a stranger.

Despite the agony, he peeled his eyes open, squinting up at the man who held him so gently against his chest. The inquisitive, soothing touch to his face felt like the touch of a lover, far too intimate an act for a stranger. And he couldn’t place the smell, familiar despite how unusual it was.

The man did have blue eyes. His hair was dark, nearly black, slightly curled, and several strands of it stuck to his forehead. His tie was a little loose, and askew, making him look like an accountant who had just fallen off a subway train during the mid-afternoon rush home.

There was something about those eyes, though. Like the smell, they were familiar. 

But it had been decades. Dean couldn’t, for the life of him, connect the face in front of him with the angel in the basement, a curiosity of his former life that he was now determined to flee from. What he did see – and all he saw – was a stranger who was patting his hair, and cuddling him far too tightly; a stranger who was a man, and who had no conceivable right to hold him the way he was.

Despite the agony that came when his head moved even an inch, Dean fought for his freedom, struggled away from the stranger, kicking fiercely when he tried to catch him and hold him still. Fighting to get away brought life back into his limbs as surely as it let loose the firestorm in his brain. Dean didn’t care, though, so long as he was out of the man’s arms, didn’t care that it left him panting, leaning against the motel wall instead.

“Who—who the hell are you?”

The man looked hurt. Actually, to be honest, he'd looked perpetually miserable since the first moment Dean had opened his eyes, so it wasn’t a big change.

“I’m sorry. I know this isn’t the vessel you expected.”

 _Vessel?_ Dean knew that word. It had been drummed into his brain that he would be Michael’s vessel, and Sam would be Lucifer’s. That made this man an angel, and therefore a holdover from a life that Dean wanted no part of. His eyes narrowed.

“The answer’s ‘No’, I’m not letting any of you fuckers wear my skin. I’ve had it. I’ve had it with all your bullshit, you hear me?”

“Dean…” The man sighed and tried again. “It is I who raised you from perdition.”

Dean bristled. “So you pulled me out of Hell. Is that meant to make me sweet on you? Answer’s still ‘No’, douchenugget.”

There was a long pause. Dean stared at the man, trying to shake the familiar feeling. Maybe they’d walked past each other in the street some time. That would certainly explain the way he felt, but not the way that the man was looking at him.

Eventually, the stranger spoke again.

“I raised you from Hell, Dean, at your brother’s behest. Sam let me go so that I could save you, but my vessel was too weak. I needed to return to my true form to save you, and without my grace to sustain her…”

At some point, while the angel had been speaking, Dean’s vision had focused. He knew who this man was, and he knew why he felt familiar. His throat squeezed tight, almost making the word impossible to croak out. Somehow he managed it, though. _Somehow._

“Castiel?”

Cas fell silent, and after a moment he nodded, just slightly. There was no sudden rush of movement as Dean threw himself into Cas’ arms, no desperate cry of anguish; they sat silently and looked at each other, until Cas finally spoke again.

“Sam found a plate in a book which described an angel raising a soul from Hell. It was beautiful. When he showed me the picture, I thought that, perhaps, it might describe us. A prophecy. Either way, I knew that if I was strong enough, I could accomplish the same task.”

Here Castiel paused, just for a moment. His eyes raked across the bedspread then raised toward him, so full of dizzying yearning that it nearly took Dean’s breath away.

“To know that you had been damned, and that was why you hadn’t been to visit… I’m sorry, Dean. I thought that you had left without me.”

“You wanted me to,” Dean said, achingly. “You wanted me to find a girl and settle down, right? You said someday I wouldn’t come back.”

“But you were in Hell, suffering.”

“Doesn’t matter. You got me out.”

Castiel stepped toward him, his head tilting ever so slightly to one side. Dean let him cross the distance between them, not sure what he expected; a hug? Instead, Castiel pressed his mouth against Dean’s suddenly, crushing their lips against each other in that anciently familiar, eager way. He kissed him the way that Dean had taught Castiel to kiss him, years ago, used his hands to frame his face, the way that Dean had once held hers, and yet this time…

\--This time, Dean pushed Cas away. Hard.

“What--what are you doing?”

Castiel looked puzzled, returning his arms to his sides, hurt manifesting in his expression.

“Kissing you.”

“No. _No_. No, Cas, you can’t just… You can’t kiss me like that.”

The angel tilted his head, confused. “How would you like me to kiss you?”

“No, Cas. You can’t kiss me—“ He gestured up and down with both arms, indicating his body. “ _Like that._ ”

It was clear from Castiel’s expression that he was trying, and failing, to work out what Dean meant. But Dean couldn’t bring himself to explain, wasn’t even sure he could explain it to himself. He didn’t kiss guys. It was that simple. For all the loving words he’d told Castiel, for all the times they’d made out for hours after school, for all the whispered affirmations by a horny teenaged boy that if only he was allowed to untie her, they could make love right there on the basement floor--this wasn’t the Castiel he knew. It was, but it wasn’t, and Dean was ashamed of himself in some way he barely understood, knowing and looking at this man, his angel, absolutely certain that the creature he loved was inside him, and yet not attracted to _him_ at all.

No, that wasn’t true. Cas’ chosen vessel _was_ handsome. It wasn’t a struggle to imagine it, in some ways, and his mouth had tasted so sweet… But Dean was straight. He knew it to his core. He _knew_ he loved Castiel, but he was certain that it was in the form they’d met, that beautiful creature whom he had found in the dark; his secret crush and his confidante.

So why, if he was straight and that was the end of it, was it so hard to cut him down? It should have been easy. He shouldn’t have felt ashamed or guilty pushing Cas away, should he?

Then again, anyone would feel guilty with the injured way that Cas was looking at him.

“This vessel displeases you?”

Dean shifted his feet. “Can’t you go back? Back to the other one?”

Castiel shook his head. “Without me to sustain that body, I’m afraid it perished. She was too badly injured…”

“Injured?”

Hesitation followed. Cas looked away. He was obviously struggling with something. Dean understood why a moment later, when he answered him.

“Your father.”

Dean scowled. One mention of his father, and his mood was in freefall. “What do you mean? What did he do?”

“It doesn’t matter now. She’s in Heaven, and this… This is the only vessel I had available to me. Well… No, that’s not entirely true. There was a girl.”

Dean brightened at once. “A girl?”

“She is only seven years old. This is her father.”

Dean faltered, then. A little girl. Cas had taken away her father, just so that he could pull him out of Hell. With sinking dread, he realized that his Dad was right after all. Angels were monsters, they broke up families, they got people killed. Even his beloved Castiel.

“You should let him go home,” he said. “You should let him go home to his family. No kid deserves to grow up like that.”

Castiel bit his lip. It was a cute gesture, but petulant. “You need me.”

“No way. I’m out. I don’t want anything to do with angels or demons. It’s over.”

“You’re wrong,” Cas answered. “Now that the seals are breaking, the archangels will be after you. All of them.”

Dean didn’t want to hear it. He wanted to be able to walk away, just close his eyes and ignore it all like it didn’t exist. If he could have erased his life, his memories as a Legacy, he’d have done so in a heartbeat, but he couldn’t.

Now, without Cas in the shape he ought to be in, there was nothing to hold onto. Sam would soon be gone either way, and Dean knew that there was no way to save him, no way to prevent the way the world was rolling. It wanted to destroy itself so why not let it, when there was nothing worthwhile left for him to save?

“I don’t care,” Dean pressed. He manifested his coldest expression, lifting his chin minutely and fixing his staring green eyes on the angel. His angel no more. “I said I’m done with angels. That means you too. I want you—I want you, and all the rest of them, out of my life.”

“If that’s what you want,” Cas breathed. He was supposed to leave right then and there, supposed to just walk away, but instead he came closer, moving as if to kiss him again. Dean’s expression crossed into something angry, but he didn’t have time to speak. Instead, Cas pressed his hand against his chest, and Dean broke down in fresh agony, feeling instantly like Cas had seared right through his body with a thousand hot needles.

“What did you do?!” he demanded when he was able to breathe in again. It still hurt. Every single breath stung.

“If you don’t want angels to find you,” Castiel said, mutely, “then you must be invisible to them. From now on, even I won’t be able to find you unless you invite me to.”

Dean breathed hard, tilting his chin down to look at himself. There was nothing there, no sign to show that he had been marked. Again.

“If it’s what you want—“ Cas began.

Dean cut him off before he could go any further down that path. “It’s what I want. This guy has a kid. Let him go home.”

There was something in his eye. Dean rubbed at it, feeling a sweeping, nauseous wave of misery rising up in him at the same moment. By the time he’d lowered his hand Castiel had vanished.


	18. Imperio VIII

\----- Imperio VIII (Dean‘s POV – Columbus, Montana; December 7th 2008) -----

Keeping angels from finding him was one thing. 

Dean spotted him across the bar. It was the most butt-clenching, cold sweat moment of his entire life, looking up and seeing those eyes screwing into him, something like loathing so blatant in them that Dean had to stare twice as long just to be sure that it really was his father he was looking at. John had always been a hard taskmaster, but Dean was his son, and he was sure that his father had never actually hated him, his sharp edges a mask for the difficult life that he had brought his sons into.

Not now, though; not at this moment. At this moment, John _hated_ him. Dean knew why, of course. He'd deserted his family when they most needed him, given up the cause while knowing what they would face in the coming year. Worse than that, he'd let them carry on thinking that he was dead, burning in Hell, just so that he could run from it.

Hatred was justified. Dean knew that he deserved it, but it didn't make it any easier to look at.

There was no point running, either. As terrified as that look made him, he knew to stand his ground and let the punishment come at him full throttle. He wasn't a coward just because he'd had enough, but he would be if he ran. 

He stood up, suddenly weary again, feeling as chained as he had been in Hell. The weight of all his responsibilities, escaped for a moment, plummeted mercilessly down on his shoulders, and for one whirling instant Dean wondered if death wouldn't be a simpler option. He'd never considered it before, not even for a moment, but given the sentence of returning to the Men of Letters and serving for the rest of his life, it was a more peaceful option. Heaven or Hell, at least he wouldn't have to keep on _fighting_.

And then he stepped into the cold Montana night, stopped walking, and waited.

The hum of the bar continued behind him, muted and cosy. Out here, snowflakes were just starting to fall, the ground already mulchy with them. He'd dreamed of cocooning himself out here during the winter, hiding among the mountains, up some snowed-in pass where nobody could find him. He could wait the Apocalypse out up here, and nobody would know him from Adam.

The volume rose briefly, then fell again, and Dean was no longer alone.

"You thought you could just walk away, and nobody would notice?"

Dean looked at the ground, just about managing to shrug one shoulder. "I thought I could just walk away and nobody would care."

John said nothing, so Dean dug himself in deeper. "I was dead anyway. That was the point wasn't it? Me going to Hell must have been all part of the plan, like all the other bullshit you've ever pulled on us."

"We had to break the first seal so that the rest could follow."

Dean was baffled by the answer. Seals again? Cas had mentioned seals. "What does that have to do with me?"

"Everything. You broke, and it broke."

Dean was staring at his father by now, so it was blatantly clear to him that John didn't have the slightest understanding of what it meant when he said 'You broke'. He stared at John, disgusted and humiliated - angry - looked right at the man he'd once respected and yearned to please, and felt only hatred. At least now they had something in common.

"You let me go to Hell for this. For this fucking... For this _mission_. You knew they were going to torture me until I couldn't fucking take it any more, and that was the _plan_?! And what? Why? What part of any of this is going to bring Mom back?" He was shaking his head, spitting through his words, his fury wild and inconsolable. On any other day he would have regretted what he was saying, but not now--not today.

"If you miss Mom so much why don't you do us both a favor and go join her?"

He had to walk away. If he'd stayed he'd have punched John in the face. As it was, he didn't get a choice. He'd made it no more than ten meters when a weight landed on his back, and the asphalt jumped up to meet him at twice the usual speed. He turned his head just in time, and the gravel bit into his cheek instead of breaking his nose.

John turned him over and remedied the error with his fist. Overwhelmed by pain, Dean kicked furiously, struggling to push his father off him through punch after punch.

Reprieve came unexpectedly. One moment, Dean was shoving upward and then John was simply rising away from him, leaving Dean - if anything - even more stunned than he had been a moment before. He put one hand to the bridge of his bleeding nose and staggered upright, blinking through the pain.

"What the hell? You change your mind?"

"The plan is as it has always been."

John didn't sound like John. The words were more pronounced, clipped and hard, like someone speaking English who'd had a computer's understanding of the language beamed into their head. Dean knew instantly that his father had been possessed by an angel. Maybe it was because of the lights flashing behind his eyelids, but he hadn't even seen it happen.

"Don't you assholes need consent to jump into people's bodies?"

"Your father gave me consent, once. He just doesn't remember doing so. It's better that way."

"The fuck it is," Dean snapped. "Just because someone says 'yes' one time doesn't mean they're up for it forever." And then, since the angel didn't seem to care about the morality at play here, he pushed on with a more pertinent question. "Who are you? Castiel?"

"Castiel? No, I'm not Castiel. Castiel is broken. Raising you from Hell was his last and only task."

" _Her_ ," Dean snapped. "And what do you mean 'broken'? Broken like I'm broken?"

"You will forget your agony in Hell when you say 'Yes' to me."

For the second time in an hour Dean felt cold dread rise in his chest. "Michael."

It sounded so final: "when you say 'yes'," as though it were a pre-decided thing. Dean bared his teeth against it instinctively. "Only one tall enough for this ride is me. Sorry, douchebag."

"I have what you might call leverage," Michael told him. "Your affection for the aforementioned angel, and the fact that if you don't serve as my vessel, I will have to choose another."

"Keep him," Dean snapped sharply. "You both pretty much suck, you should get on fine."

Michael shook his head slowly. "You'll change your mind. Until then--"

There was a rush of air. Dean felt like his stomach was flung around a Wall of Death. And then...

"This is the Green Room," Michael was telling him, softly. "We'll speak again soon, Dean. When it's closer to the right time. Until then it's important that we keep you safe."

"You son of a bitch. You can't just keep me here! You can't--"

Michael was already gone, and Dean was left shouting at a painting of him instead, feeling suddenly stunned and lost. He'd run away from this and here he was right back in it. At least his nose wasn't stinging any more. Exploration revealed that it had been healed.

But what would be the price?


	19. Visitatio VII

\----- Visitatio VII (Henry‘s POV – Lebanon, Kansas; 1st January 1958) -----

The sounds of celebration carried down the stairs as Henry made his way into the basement. He was quickly running out of excuses. While he knew that his cataloguing of artefacts could still take some time, he had been ordered to make it less of a priority. Tonight, though, he could sneak away from the others while they celebrated the New Year. If they had drunk enough they wouldn’t miss him at all.

The merriment was a good mask to Henry’s ulterior motives, and while he wouldn’t have time for a game of chess he could keep her company for a short while at least.

She smiled at him when he lit the oil lamp on top of the boxes, her attention warm and gentle. Sometimes, Henry thought to himself, he regretted that she was imprisoned here. He knew that the woman Castiel possessed was only a vessel, but that woman’s smile? Well, it would light up a room. That kind of beauty shouldn’t be contained the way she was, neither by the Men of Letters, nor by the angel itself.

Nor should he be so sentimental. People were lost to the world all the time. Beautiful people. Lonely people. Hateful people. Monsters stole them from their lives. It was hard to imagine Castiel as one of them. She didn’t have fangs or yellow eyes and she was always considerate when they spoke.

“How are your family? How is John?”

She always asked about his family, and Henry _never_ considered it a threat the way he might if a demon were asking. Castiel enjoyed the idea of life and she liked looking at the slides that Henry showed her. He held them up to the glass of the oil lamp so that they shone on the wall.

“They’re well, thank you. John is… Well, John is smarter than a button. I’m so proud of him.”

“Have you had any success with the, um…”

“Not yet. No, but we’re happy. I’m happy. Family means the world to both of us, but John is our angel. If we can’t have another child it doesn’t matter. We’ll do everything we can to ensure he lives the life he deserves to.”

“That’s honourable,” Castiel answered softly. If anything, Henry hadn't noticed the irony of calling his son an angel to an actual creature of that name, and Cas obviously didn't intend to mention it.

"Do you know what day it is?" Henry asked as he rearranged the room, moving a chair away from the wall. "It's New Year's. Right now it's the end of 1957, and the beginning of 1958. The bells are ringing, people are celebrating. We can't know what the new year will bring, but we make wishes for it none the less. I don't suppose you observe that tradition, do you? Angels?"

"We do not. Humans created the calendar, after all, it had nothing to do with us."

Henry took a seat, facing her, and smiled. "What do you need, Castiel? I can't hope to make you truly comfortable down here, and I can't set you free, but... I want to do something for you. A New Year's Resolution."

It was an empty gesture. If he couldn't offer her freedom when that was surely all she wanted, then what good was he?

She blinked, as though the question confused her, then closed her eyes, puzzling it deeper. There was an answer there. Henry knew that all he needed to do was wait for it.

Finally her eyes opened again, and Henry looked hopeful.

"All I wish from you," Castiel said, "is that you raise your son in your own spirit, not to see angels as the enemy. If he is to be brought into this organization as you are, then I would have him see us as allies. I may not be free for decades, or even centuries, but my lifespan is far greater than yours, and your son, your grandchildren, and theirs, may at least keep me company while I wait for my freedom. That is all I want from you."

Henry regarded her for a few quiet moments, considering the depth of her request. It wouldn't mean raising John any differently than he already intended to, but was he damning his son to a friendship that would seem as futile to him as it did to Henry? 

Did it matter? Henry had been blessed to have Castiel as a companion. She had taught him a great deal even in such a short time, and - he thought - made him a better man. He wanted his son to be a better man too.

Slowly his stillness turned to gentle nodding and he met her eyes again.

"I'd like that. For them, as well as for you, so long as it's their choice."

"Only if it's their choice," Castiel consented, and he thought he saw her smile just for a moment.

"I have to get back," Henry said. "I'll come see you as soon as I can. I'm sorry I didn't stay long, but as drunk as they are, I take up quite too much space to vanish entirely."

Cas shook her head. "I'm grateful for the visit no matter how long you stay, you know that."

Henry gave her one last beaming smile and left.


	20. Visitatio VIII

\----- Visitatio VIII (Dean‘s POV – Van Nuys, California; May 13th 2009) -----

How long had it been? Long enough to have Dean bouncing off the walls, that was for sure. He was trapped in this goddamn stupid box. There were no doors, no windows, not even a bed--not that he felt tired, of course, but Dean would rather have somewhere to lie down that wasn't right on the floor. There was nothing to do but eat or get drunk. What was that about? Maybe Michael just didn't give a shit if his vessel put on a few hundred pounds before they went and fought the devil together.

Bored out of his mind and unable to even sleep it off, Dean took turns either destroying the place (it magically popped back just as before), trying and failing to bash his brains out against the wall, and standing miserable in front of each of the paintings counting the individual brushstrokes. He even licked one of them just to experience something different.

Today, Dean sat slumped against the wall, trying to recall, in order, all the words from the _Appetite for Destruction_ album. He was halfway through the second version of Sweet Child of Mine, wondering if he shouldn't scream it at the walls just to give the angels a headache, when three of them appeared right in front of him.

He started upright, staggering to his feet and lurching dangerously to the left in the process. His foot had fallen asleep.

"Castiel?"

Sure enough, it was Castiel who stood in front of him, still dressed as an accountant, blinking blue eyes at him. He was being restrained by a large, sharply dressed man, the stark overhead light shining off his dark, polished head. He smirked at Dean in a way that made him feel particularly unsettled, squeezing Cas' shoulder as he did.

The third angel, Dean immediately realized, was a prick. Middle management type, balding and sneering.

"Hello Dean."

Dean looked him over defiantly. "Who the fuck are you? Quincy M.E.?"

"My name is Zachariah. And this is Uriel. Castiel, of course, you already know."

"Uriel like the mermaid? Cute." The angels didn't know to correct him, but it clearly pissed Uriel off either way, because Castiel winced a moment later and Dean knew that the hand on his shoulder was squeezing harder still.

It made him feel terribly protective. Man or not, Cas was his friend, his angel, and had been since he was very young. He knew how this was going to go because Michael had warned him, he just hadn't realized how much he'd actually care. His shoulders raised a half inch.

"So what? I say 'Yes' to Michael, or you hurt him? Sorry to disappoint you, but I've been to Hell. I've met people who swing much bigger dicks than you."

"Is that right?"

Zachariah nodded to Uriel, and Uriel withdrew a nasty looking blade. Dean recognized it, of course. They'd had one just like it at the bunker; an angel blade. When he pressed it to Castiel's jaw the agony was as clear as his defiance. He didn't cry out even though blue grace and blood spilled into the wound. Dean didn't look away. Though he imagined Cas had been through far worse during his captivity with the Men of Letters, it didn't make it any easier to watch; yet he would be doing a disservice to Cas' strength if he wasn't equally strong.

He looked back at Zachariah, playing for nonplussed.

"This is your best play? You're not gonna win the Super Bowl with a move like that."

He shouldn't have baited him. The next strike of the blade went into Castiel's belly. The two angels moved aside, and Dean moved as though drawn into a vacuum by their absence, crossing to Castiel's side and dropping down beside him.

"Hey. Hey, you okay? You're not gonna bleed to death on me, are you?"

Castiel grimaced. The wound shone, even though the blade had been pulled away. Though Castiel held his hand across it, blood spilled between his fingers. "No. No, not from a wound like this. It may yet take days to heal, but we...we don't have that much time."

"And if I say 'Yes'?"

"They will kill me anyway," Castiel told him. His bloodied hand came up, closed around Dean's wrist and squeezed. "Michael's power will tear you apart. There will be nothing left."

Zachariah coughed behind him. "Can we wrap this up?"

"It's okay, Dean. It's enough to be free. To be able to hold your hand is a gift that I never thought I would have."

Dean shot a glare over his shoulder, then looked back at Castiel. He felt foolish looking into eyes that so clearly held love for him. He closed his other hand over Castiel's and squeezed back hard. He didn't want to watch him die. It wasn’t fair.

His life wasn't often fair. He was used to it.

"I love you," Castiel told him soberly. Dean wished he hadn't. He didn't know how to say it back, and it felt so heartbreakingly final that Dean strained against it like a horse pulling on a rope. He wanted more time. He needed to work out how to respond to those words, needed to come up with a solution where Cas didn't have to die and he could sit down and churn through all his own crap and find the answer the angel needed.

There wasn't enough time.

Uriel pulled him off Cas, tore him away and held him at arm's length while Zachariah drew his own blade. Dean wrestled against the iron grip behind him, watching as Zachariah stood over Cas, tapping the sharp tip of his blade against his bottom lip.

"He loves you? Ridiculous. Angels can't love humans. We don't feel what you feel. You'd think that one that had been through what Castiel has at the hands of your organization would be particularly averse to such sentiment. What's got into you, Castiel? Stockholm syndrome?"

Dean grimaced, and shook his head. "You're wrong. You feel. _He_ feels."

"He's certainly feeling something right now," Uriel chuckled darkly. "Pain."

"Which he will continue to feel unless you give Michael your consent. We can heal him... But we can also hurt him more. Uriel enjoys that part."

"I do."

Dean was certain that this exchange in particular had only confirmed what he already knew: angels sucked. 

But not all of them. Castiel rallied, defiantly lifting his chin. "You have always been far too ready with violence, Uriel."

"You would know," Uriel returned. "Before you were caught like a fly in a trap, you were more than happy to make use of my skills. I recall you having a violent streak of your own."

Castiel tilted his head away, ashamed, measuring some ancient pain. It left Zachariah to present Dean with a final warning.

"What will it be, Dean? We'll get you to say 'yes' either way. This way you don't have to see your boyfriend ripped to pieces in front of you first."

Uriel was advancing intimidatingly, and Dean gripped Castiel tighter, not wanting to let him go.

Then, out of nowhere, there was a door. Sam stepped through it abruptly, wielding some sort of silver object that emitted bright light, and Dean experienced the strange, upsetting sensation of his whole body being tugged through his navel. Or that was what it felt like, anyway.


	21. Considerantia I

\----- Considerantia I (Castiel's POV – Orono, Maine; 23rd April 1901) -----

_That poor woman._

Those three words resonated in Castiel's head, somewhere between a hum and a drumbeat. She'd excused herself from the rest of her flight, needing some time to contemplate - or even to mourn - before she surrendered her human vessel and returned to her patient vigil in heaven. 

That scream... How could she ever forget that mother's scream?

Even though there was opportunity to do so, when all was said and done, she couldn't bring herself to go inside the house. Instead she was here, wandering aimlessly, first through the woods and then into town. She'd almost collided with a horse drawn wagon, distanced from reality as she felt. How could they ever sanction what they’d done? Certainly exterminating a Nephilim was Heavenly law being meted out, but how could God want a human life to be ended - even a half human life - when there were other possibilities; other options?

Yet Ishim had walked in, bold and confident, to finish that terrible task laid before them. It had been bad enough that Akabel had fallen as he had--he surely hadn't _loved_ that woman. Angels didn't love humans, Castiel knew that. And yet when had Akabel ever lied to them? He was a respectable angel; he was loyal. _Love_? He had been so adamant.

There was just something so devastating about it. Why did it hurt Castiel so deeply to have been involved? It wasn't just because of Akabel's betrayal and death.

Something troubled her. Maybe it was the entire affair. Yes, that was it. These humans... They appeared content to carry on in their messy business, killing each other and killing the land they lived on--all the bounty that was made theirs by God and what did they make of it? Slavery, segregation, water thick with sewage and air thick with smoke. She could see that they made beautiful things, yoking their creativity, that the emotions that they had could be used for wonders too, but she was still undecided.

Yet it was angels that had burdened Lily Sunder's life. Angels had been a force of corruption and pain, not the woman herself. They had taken her child from her. A gifted child, certainly, and a dangerous one, but the woman's child none the less. Castiel had known from the very first infant just how devoted a mother's love - and therefore Lily's - must surely have been.

Sighing, Castiel descended the steps to the boardwalk. A number of buildings had been set up, their eaves overhanging the walkway, casting cool evening shadows across her path. It was a chilly spring night, but Castiel was unfettered by the quickly dropping temperature, the skirts of her dress dragging with every step she took. She would have to return soon, she thought, glancing across the river. Her brothers and sisters would be waiting for her.

When she looked back, a man was standing in front of her. He stood directly in her path, scrutinizing her intently, one hand on the tobacco pipe from which he was smoking. Though he was in such a position that his hands, should he raise them, would reach from either side of the path to the other, he made no direct effort to intercept her.

She could have flown away then, without saying a word, or else released her vessel from its service. But another voice from behind caught her attention and she turned.

Two more men were standing behind her, blocking her retreat.

They weren't demons - this she knew - and for a fleeting moment she believed that they might be street thieves, stealing from what they saw as an easy target: a woman walking alone in the fading dusk. Her theory fell apart, however, when turning back to the first man she watched him toss his pipe down onto the ground. Hot sparks fell from the end of it and at once lit the boardwalk aflame. Castiel could smell the holy oil as it began to burn, but by then it was too late and she was trapped inside the circle.

Trapped. But what could they do with her inside the circle?

"Recite the spell, Irvine."

Irvine, the youngest of the three men, fumbled with the book, "Yes... Yes of course. Yes. Here it is.”

" **NAHA, BOLP PAAOX PAID. PALGEH, RAASY PALSE. OUCHO ILS. ZIR OADOa VEP VORSG. ILS ORDA. ZORGE VNDANPEL. ADNA GAHALANA MARB NANAEEL Q IALPRG TRIAN ORDAN OROCHA. PHALT PAMP, GAH. PHAR. BRGDA.** "

The syllables of each Enochian letter were pronounced clearly, and Castiel could tell that the speaker understood his words, to a degree. To human ears and a human tongue the pronunciation was as follows:

"Drun-un-na-hath-un, pe-me-dur-mals mals-un-un-med-pal mals-un-gon-gal. Mals-un-ur-ged-graph-na-hath, don-un-un-fam-gon mals-un-ur-fam-graph. Med-val-veh-na-hath-med gon-ur-fam. Ceph-gon-don med-un-gal-me-da val-val-graph-mals val-val-med-don-fam-ged. Gon-ur-fam med-don-gal-un. Ceph-med-don-ged-graph val-val-drun-gal-un-drun-mals-graph-ur. Un-gal-drun-un ged-un-na-hath-un-ur-un-drun-un tal-un-don-pe drun-un-drun-un-graph-graph-ur ger gon-un-ur-mals-don-ged gi-sa-don-gon-un-drun med-don-gal-un-drun med-don-med-veh-na-hath-un. Mals-na-hath-un-ur-gi-sa mals-un-tal-mals, ged-unna-hath. Mals-na-hath-un-don. Ped-on-ged-gal-un."

The meaning... Well, the meaning was a cause of consternation for the angel trapped inside her ring of fire. Panic, actually. Castiel felt true panic, looking between her captors with no understanding of who they were or what their purpose was. She didn't understand that she had been free until right now, even as that freedom was taken from her.

"Glory of God, thou shalt remain always. Thou art separated, cast into the raging fire. Let it confound you. I am weaving as a flame over you. You will dwell within. Be friendly with me, the master magician. Obedience will exist, according to my power, or burning flames shall be manifest underneath you. Surrender unto me, spirit. Surrender. Sleep.”

The magician's power was more than enough--that, and the glowing sigil that illuminated beneath Castiel's feet as he spoke. As the final command was uttered, darkness closed in about her and Castiel crumbled to the ground asleep...or as close to it as an angel could truly come.


	22. Considerantia II

\-----Considerantia II (John‘s POV – Normal, Illinois; June 17th 1958) -----

John Winchester tangled his stubby fingers in his blanket and wriggled into a better position on the bed. The lamp was already lit beside him, not that it was strictly necessary. It was June after all, and bedtime came before the sun went down; green light filtered through the leaves outside and made patterns all across his bedspread. A bird was singing somewhere in its branches.

He was waiting anxiously, sat up and staring over his shoulder at his bedroom door. At last, the sound of companionable voices came up the stairs, and he tensed on the bed like a spider sensing vibrations, falling still to wait and see what happened next. To his delight the door opened and his father let himself in, closing the door gently behind him.

“Here was me thinking by the time I got up here you’d be sleeping.”

“Nuh uh,” John said, breaking into a big grin. Sleep when his Dad was coming to read to him? Not likely. It was a rare enough occasion as it was; he wasn’t going to squander the opportunity by napping no matter how talkative his mother could be after her community meetings. His Dad had promised to read to him, and now here he was, holding something behind his back that had John’s sense of excitement ramping up even further.

With great flourish Henry presented the comic book to him. Superman! John began bouncing in place, and Henry had to reach out and still his son with a hand on his shoulder.

“If you keep this up we’re going to have to start on _War and Peace _for bedtime instead. Clearly the tales of Clark Kent are far too exciting.”__

__As though by magic John settled, but he still hummed with excitement as his father lowered himself in the chair beside the bed and spread the comic book open so he could see. John knew lots of the words now, but the text was still quite difficult for him to read, and so Henry did the bulk of the work. Occasionally, though, John would read as prompted, sounding out the onomatopoeic **POW!** and **CRACK!** on demand._ _

__Henry read to him until the light from the lamp was all they had to see by, and when at last John’s eyes were drooping his father kissed him gently above his left eyebrow, left the comic book on the bedside cabinet, and took away the last of the light as he left._ _

__John slept soundly just as he always did; unafraid, and unaware that one day he would know all about the things that lurked in the darkness; unaware that he, too, was a Legacy of the Men of Letters, his future and his fate unavoidable._ _


	23. Finale I

\----- Finale I (Henry‘s POV – ; August 12th 1958) -----

A demon was wearing his friend’s skin.

Already Henry was self-flagellating over the fact, convinced, in some grim kind of final guilt, that he ought to have been able to see the difference somehow. He had worked beside this woman after all, and yes, she had always seemed more liberal than the other women in his life – certainly more than his wife – but she had always been that way, hadn’t she? After all she was pursuing a role in the Men of Letters, striking out at a glass ceiling that towered over the occult just as much as it did the rest of the world. He found it as startlingly impressive as it was revolutionary and, had he not been very happily married, his curiosity could have led to dalliance and dalliance to something more.

But there was a creature inside her now. Her warm eyes had looked somehow calculating as she turned away from him to follow after his cloaked companions, and Henry knew immediately what he was looking at. Not Josie. Not Josie, full of energy and nervous, straining against the invisible leashes of chauvinism that tried to hold her down. She had looked back at him, and his smile had faltered, perhaps, because her eyes had gone from warm to deepest black in the space of a heartbeat.

Henry only had one chance to halt her, one chance to prevent this catastrophe and give his fellow Men of Letters time to escape. He threw himself forward, practically shouldering his colleague out of the way in order to get between her and the others.

At once, a grip like cast iron snapped shut around his throat. She held him tight, searing her dark gaze into him, before becoming distracted by the murmur of an exorcism at their feet. A moment later Henry’s friend and colleague was dead, and her attention returned to him.

“Such a disgusting, denigrating thing: love.”

Henry blinked in confusion. He had no idea what she meant.

“Oh, you didn’t know? Josie _loved_ you. Oh, she’d have been happy to become the most closeted housewife, if only you would deign to come home and give it to her once in awhile. What? Too crass?”

Henry was blushing, humiliated by the suggestion of him giving anything to Josie. He was a loving husband to his wife and a loving father to his son. John. _John._ His son wouldn’t know what had happened to him. Who would look after his family? Well, such was obvious. The other men in the room would do so, if only he could make sure they escaped.

And if they didn’t?

“She gave her body to me so that I wouldn’t take yours. Isn’t that just so…so tooth-achingly sweet?”

Henry needed to stall. It took all his effort to grind discernable words through his all but closed throat. “Who are you?”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter to you, Henry. You’re going to die whether you know my name or not.”

Henry hitched in another agonizing breath. He was surprised when the demon released her grip on him slightly, just enough so that he could talk.

“We could make a deal,” Henry said, breathlessly. “We have something you want.”

It was instinctual, but the moment he said it, Henry knew that there really was only one thing that a demon could want from the Men of Letters. But if it was a choice between Castiel and seeing his son again, knowing that this demon would go after either or both when he was gone? The agony of his outburst was devastating, and he was certain that the demon could tell that it was genuine.

“You really believe that, don’t you?” She flicked her attention to the closed door, catching up to the fact that her own surprise attack was slipping through her fingers. “You’re out of luck, dear. I’m not a crossroads demon. Those scum aren’t even fit to lick my boots. No. I _take_ what I want, and that… Well, that goes for you too, handsome.”

Before Henry could stop her, the demon had pushed into his space and pressed her lips against his own. But it was no mere kiss. He could feel her dark, cloying spirit suffocating him, lunging down into his throat and up behind his eyes, making him recall thoughts, feelings and memories; his son, his wife, Josie, the Bunker—even his secret friendship with Castiel.

Within moments – only moments – she had withdrawn, smiling coolly at him.

“See? That was much easier, wasn’t it? An angel. My, my. It’s been awhile since I pulled feathers off one of those flying pests. Thank you, Henry. You’ve been very helpful. I’ll say ‘hi’ to your son for you.”

The past tense in her declaration was all the warning he needed, though he was unable to do anything about it. He felt shame, horror for Castiel, fear for his son, but it was all gone in a moment. Death pulled him into its shroud, tore him away from everything he knew, and gave him peace that – were he alive, and cognizant – he simply would not have been able to stand.


	24. Finale II

\----- Finale II (Dean‘s POV – Sweet Lips, Tennessee; May 13th 2009) -----

Somehow, Dean Winchester was still alive.

If not for the fact that he was pretty much done with all angels, he might have thought that it was a miracle. Scratch that, it was _definitely_ a miracle. Sure, he felt like he'd been in a fight with a half ton grizzly bear and his head was still ringing like Sunday service, but he was alive--lying on something stubby and prickly, with the scent of burning all around him, and disgustingly sticky with blood, sure--but _alive._. That last part was what counted the most.

Something warm was pressed against the parts of him that didn’t hurt. Dean had slept with enough people by now to know what a sleeping body felt like. --Or near enough sleeping, at least, because a few seconds after Dean began to get his bearings, the body beside him began to groan.

“Castiel?”

Dean untangled himself just enough that he could look into the angel’s face in the semi-darkness. He wasn’t just seeing stars, they were also glowing overhead. Somehow they’d found themselves in a cornfield, crushing rows of foot high stalks beneath their combined weight. 

Castiel looked like shit, but that wasn’t surprising considering he’d been stabbed. The cornfield looked like it had come out the worst of all of them.

“What the Hell just happened?” Dean demanded. 

Castiel punctuated his discomfort by coughing up blood, grimacing, and self consciously rubbing his mouth on his shoulder. The movement only made him obviously dizzy and he moaned again. How long had they lain here? Dean felt cold all the way through to his bones, and it felt like the hard stalks of maize had made near permanent imprints in his body.

“Your brother banished us. It was… Oh. It was part of the plan.”

“The plan? There was a plan? So you getting stabbed in the gut, almost dying--I’m guessing that was part of the plan too?”

“I suppose you thought we happened to be there at the same moment by coincidence?”

Dean could tell it was a rhetorical question.

“Where are we?” Castiel asked, after a moment. He was a little more coherent now, as Dean helped him to sit up. There were distant lights but no obvious landmarks, just corn and more corn.

“Aren’t you supposed to know that?” Dean asked dryly. “Birds have an innate sense of direction, right?”

Castiel cast him a withering look. “I am not a bird.”

It was easier to tease him than focus on their being lost in the middle of nowhere, the seriousness of their situation, or the risk that Sam had taken upon himself in freeing them. “You have wings, so you’re a bird.”

“A house has wings. Are houses birds too?”

He had to admit that Cas had him there, but the angel had always been surprisingly sharp for someone who had been underground for most of a century. He changed the subject.

“I’m guessing you’re not strong enough to zap us anywhere, huh?”

“The spell affects an angel’s compass. If you would enjoy Antarctica, fifty feet beneath the Earth’s crust, or the dark side of the moon, then we can take our chances…”

“No, I’m good. Besides, that light doesn’t look like it could be far away. We can walk it.”

Castiel faltered, and Dean understood why: the wound was grim. A human would have bled out already, and it was probably taking all his effort just to stop the vessel he was in from dying while keeping his head up. Dean tried to think of a solution, a way out. But what did he know about angels?

“Isn’t there anything I can do?” Dean pressed once they’d walked for one dreadful minute, Castiel paler and paler with each step. They’d stopped beneath an old willow tree, stooped from wind and subsidence. Castiel rested a hand against the close to horizontal bough, visibly weaker by the moment. Dean couldn’t see well enough in the low light to know how bad his injury was, but it was obviously taking its toll. Perhaps being thrown here the way they had been had caused it to worsen. Dean knew how harmful magic could be to magical beings. It was textbook stuff.

Blue eyes looked up at him. They were so dark in the low light that they looked black, and Dean licked his lips helplessly. Castiel turned his head away. He looked increasingly sad.

“No, there’s nothing.”

Dean went on instinct. “You’re lying to me.”

That got the angel’s attention, so Dean pushed it. “You’re lying to me. What is it? What can I do?”

“It’s dangerous.”

“I owe you my life. In case you haven’t noticed, I wouldn’t be out of that prison if not for you.”

“A service that you had already given me. You don’t owe me anything that is not already made equal.”

Dean paused for a moment, looking down at the angel. All those years he – she – had been trapped inside that damn basement, locked up and denied her freedom. He didn’t know how long Zachariah had had him, but it was nothing to the lengths that Castiel had suffered.

“Just tell me what I have to do,” he finally said, trying to sound earnest and urgent at the same time. “Let me help you, whatever it is.”

“I have to touch your soul.”

Dean shook his head. “You’re kidding. Is that it? Oh well, go ahead then…”

“This isn’t a joke, Dean. Your soul is like a nuclear reactor of potential energy. Angels can harness that energy, just about, but it is an incredibly dangerous process. I could kill you if things went wrong. I might even kill myself.”

As Castiel spoke, Dean sobered, but he was still confident that he wanted to help no matter the risks. “You’re not going to screw it up.”

“I thank you for your confidence, but you may not feel that way—“ Castiel was stopped by a bout of coughing that only ended when he coughed up more blood. The dark splash of it was visible in the open palm he lowered from his face. Dean’s iron will kicked in at once. They were going to do this no matter how dangerous it was.

“Touch me. Um. It. I mean, my soul. Just get on with it. I know it’s not any good, th-that there’s probably better souls out there, but you can…”

Castiel cut him off. “Not any good? Why would you think that?”

“I’ve been to Hell. I mean… It’s gotta be at least a bit shredded, right?”

Castiel shook his head. “Dean… Dean, from the moment you came to see me, that first time in the basement, I knew that yours was the most beautiful soul that I have ever seen. That hasn’t changed.”

After that, Dean couldn’t quite look Cas in the eye, so Castiel reached out and laid a hand against his head, and for a moment Dean saw it around him, iridescent fractal light that practically blinded him in the almost-darkness. It reflected off Castiel’s eyes, and made them look as blue as cobalt glass lit by sunlight. It also lit up the flash of crimson blood at his belly, far worse now than it had been in the so called green room.

“Just do it,” Dean insisted, feeling like emotion was going to overwhelm him otherwise. “Just take it. Fix it. I don’t wanna see you like this.”

“It’s going to hurt,” Castiel told him, but this time it was a warning and not a complaint. At the first touch, Dean’s brain exploded in a shower of sparks. It was like he was Spock in the Wrath of Khan, and Castiel was the warp core of the _Enterprise_ , burning him up and sucking the life out of him at the same time. It was the most agony that Dean had ever felt, even given his time in Hell; a pain that he felt like he could never possibly survive and yet somehow a divine experience at the same time. It felt much like the being that was Castiel merged with him for a moment, like they were both somehow more powerful because they were together. That this magnificent creature of light could possibly need anything from him seemed far fetched, and yet in giving it Dean felt like he was touching God—or maybe _was_ God.

And then it was over, and he felt as weak as a kitten, his knees turning to butter. Fortunately he fell into Castiel’s arms, and the angel practically scooped him off the ground as though he were made of cotton candy, holding him against his chest.

Dean might have complained, in any other situation, but he felt so helpless all of a sudden, and so grateful for his protector. Still, he made a weak grab for Castiel’s tie to pull him closer.

“Don’t you dare fly anywhere with me. I hate flying. Angel flying most of all.”

Castiel only made a face at him. “That’s inconvenient.”

“Walk. That’s what you’ve got legs for, right?”

“Then what do I have wings for? To live in?”

Dean sighed in faux exasperation and looked away toward the lights, letting his temple fall against Cas’ chest. His hand was still wrapped around the angel’s tie. It wasn’t far. He’d have to get down before they reached civilization, just to preserve some hint of his pride. But for now he wasn’t past letting Cas carry him. It was somehow far more comforting and far less humiliating than it ought to be.


	25. Finale III

\----- Finale III (John‘s POV – Ilchester, Maryland; May 14th 2009) -----

John didn’t expect cooperation from his son. From either of them, actually. After Sam had freed the angel Castiel from the basement, his youngest had fled the bunker as well. Not that he’d lasted long. Sam was addicted to the demon blood that he was drinking, and while perhaps he'd thought he could fill his craving by summoning crossroads demons, they had mysteriously decided not to answer any more calls from Winchesters. Reluctantly Sam had come back, told him what he’d done, and John had gone after Dean.

The angels had been one step ahead. One moment his son was there and the next he was gone. John had no recollection of time having passed.

In the five months since, they had opened the Hell gate and released Lilith from her prison. They had tortured Alastair, and caught an angel named Anna that had lost her memory. After convincing her to recall it, the Men of Letters had made her their new link to angel radio, crucial in the coming battle. They had found out, coincidentally, where Dean was being held, and by whom.

Most importantly, so far as John was concerned, he had had the chance to exact a long and brutal revenge on Azazel, the demon that had murdered his wife and poisoned his son. A new demon had risen in status beneath it all, Abaddon, the demon that had killed his father, when John was still too young to understand such things. She was acting as Lilith’s second, and John had set his sights on her already. Should he have his way he’d kill the whole murderous bunch of them.

He placed one hand on Sam’s shoulder to steady him, but truly he was steadying himself. Breaking the last seal would release Lucifer. Here. Now. There was no alternative moment, no other date. The stars were aligned and it was now or never.

But Sam did not want to be here. Sam did not want to fulfill his destiny. He was only doing it because of the deal that they had made. John had given Sam a weapon made of the fallen angel Anna’s grace, which he had used to save his brother. After the botched rescue – or so John thought, for Dean had vanished when the angels had - John had ushered Sam briskly onto the first priority flight to Maryland, and they’d made it to the chapel just in time.

This was it. Midnight. The doors opened and Lilith was waiting beyond, half leaning against the altar and smiling seductively.

“Oh? Is Daddy going to join us? What’s wrong, Sam? Not enough man to take me on all by yourself?”

John didn’t say a word. He handed his son a demon killing knife and waited. Sam strode ahead stubbornly but efficiently, every inch the man he had been trained to be. He lifted one hand and brought Lilith to her knees with that gesture alone, vomiting black slime.

And then Sam turned toward him, black eyed, and with a sweep of his son’s arm the doors closed in John’s face.


	26. Finale IV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello readers!  
> Well done for getting this far, and thank you!  
> All the smut warnings on this fic live in this chapter. Enjoy!

Finale IV

\----- Finale IV (Dean‘s POV – Henderson, Tennessee; May 14th 2009) -----

Dean woke to the buzzing of his phone. He’d forgotten he even had it. Hell, he hadn’t even realized it worked any more, after all it hadn’t been charged in however long it was he’d been in that angelic waiting room. Considering the lack of signal, Dean had long given up on expecting it to be of any use. Still, the vibration in his pocket told a very different story, something Dean had to guess had to do with freaky angel metaphysics. Who knew why they’d kept his phone charged, but right now Dean didn’t care.

Dean brought the phone to his ear, delirious with exhaustion. He had no idea where he was, or how he’d gotten there, and it took three tries to slide his thumb across the screen to accept the call, once he remembered to do that. Finally, a voice on the other side cut through the fog in his head. It was Sam, and Dean hadn’t realized quite how desperately he missed his brother until just that moment.

“Dean?”

“Yeah, it’s me, Sammy. It’s so good to hear your voice.”

“You’re not still mad?”

Dean couldn’t even remember what he was supposed to be angry at Sam about. It was water under the bridge. He shook his head, then realized that only Castiel could see it—Cas, who was sitting, watching him with unsettlingly sharp focus.

“I’m not mad,” Dean told him. “You saved my butt back there, Sam. And you got Castiel out. I’d still be getting the hot poker treatment without him.”

“Him?”

Dean sat up a little further in bed, looking right back at Castiel. “You don’t know?”

“Know what, Dean?”

“She’s a he now. Like. A guy.”

“Oh. Huh. Um…”

Dean paused, unnerved and uncertain. Sam wasn’t saying something, and whatever it was, it was far more strange than an angel changing their gender. Considering what they’d been through recently, Dean felt a sweeping wave of trepidation rise up around him. He didn’t want to hear it, but what choice did they have?

“What is it, Sam?”

“I don’t know how to say this. I… I fucked up, Dean.”

“What does that mean you ‘fucked up’?”

“Dad flew us to Maryland... Dean, it’s all over. The seals, Lilith, Lucifer.”

Somehow he’d known this was what it was going to be. It had to happen sooner or later. The devil would rise. That was the plan, after all.

“It’s okay, Sammy,” he told his brother. “It was our destiny, right?”

“That’s just it,” Sam answered. “Lilith’s alive. I drove her out, I didn’t kill her. She’s gone, Lucifer’s staying put, and Dad—God, the whole lot of them, they’re _furious_. I’m out, Dean. I’m not sticking around to wait to be punished.”

It was the most unexpected thing he’d ever heard. Dean had to ask Sam to repeat it, which he dutifully did. This time, though, Sam added just a little more. “Listen. I’m driving this Impala. Dad said not to drive anything with a computer in it, 'cause they could track it, and to come find you. He destroyed my phone. I’m using a payphone to call you right now.”

“Dad’s helping you?”

“We’re still his kids, Dean. He’s pissed, and maybe he doesn’t respect our choices right now, but… He’s still our dad.”

“Not mine. No way, Sam. He’s the reason I ended up in Hell. He was going to let Lucifer possess you. He tortured Castiel just to get at me. I don’t want anything to do with him.”

There was a pause on the other end. Then, finally, Sam said, “Can we meet up? Please, Dean. I can’t do this alone.”

“Can’t do what?”

“The demon blood. I can’t stop without feeling like it’s going to kill me, Dean. I need help. I need… I don’t know. I need my brother. Getting out means I’m cut off, and it’s going to drive me crazy. I know it is.”

Dean sighed, and rubbed at his temple with his free hand. “Okay. Alright, fine. But only ‘cause I owe you.”

“You do owe me,” Sam answered, relieved. “Where are you?”

“I have no idea,” Dean shrugged, glancing up at Castiel again. “Where are we?”

“Henderson, Tennessee.”

“Henderson, Tennessee,” Dean repeated down into the phone.

“I heard. He’s really a _he_ , huh? That’s so weird. He was hot as a girl angel.”

“Hanging up now,” Dean chirped, half playfully, and half defensive as hell. He tapped the phone off, then handed it to Castiel. “Can you melt that or something? I don’t know.”

“You mean with my laser vision?”

Dean blinked. “You have laser vision?”

Castiel shook his head and with one hand, crushed the phone into pieces. “It was a joke. Your grandfather once told me that he read Superman comics to his son. It was one of the many things he shared with me about his life in the brief time that we knew each other.”

Dean was stunned. In all the time they’d talked, Castiel had never mentioned knowing his grandfather, and even Dean didn’t know anything much about him apart from the fact that he’d been murdered by a demon called Abaddon. This was entirely new information. “I didn’t know you knew my grandfather.”

“We used to play chess together, as you and I did for a while.”

“At least now I know how you got so good at it.”

“And you became bored because you disliked losing. I know. Besides, we found more interesting things to do with our time, didn’t we?”

Castiel’s tone was lightly suggestive, and this time Dean’s hesitation was less of a knee jerk disgust. It lasted only for a moment before he dipped his head, blushing.

“I took advantage of you. I was a stupid kid.”

“I could have stopped you had I wished to, Dean.

“You were tied to a chair,” Dean answered. “What could you have done?” If anything, he was feeling increasingly ashamed of himself. But a moment later, Castiel’s hand rest on his thigh, and it didn’t move even when Dean stared very hard at it.

“You would have been so frightened if I was angry, or upset, that you would have ceased at once. There is no part of you that wishes harm on anything or anyone, Dean. That is what made you the righteous man that destiny demanded.”

Reluctantly, Dean let his gaze find Castiel’s. It was empathic and scrutinizing, but no longer did it carry the immense sadness that it had for all the time that Dean had known the angel in her cell. Instead the look was full only of love; more love than Dean thought he had ever known.

“I’m sorry I pushed you away.”

“You were afraid,” Castiel said, his tone lowering. The hand on his thigh was moving, inching higher as Castiel himself bent across the edge of the bed, and if Dean had been afraid before, then he had to admit to another bout of it now. This time the fear came hand in hand with an alien sense of desire. At once Dean felt like this was wrong, and yet… This _was_ the creature he had fallen in love with. What did it matter what shell it came in?

“I _am_ afraid,” Dean corrected. He didn’t like to admit his weaknesses on a good day, but Castiel had always been his confidante. He’d always been able to speak to her, and that hadn’t changed. It shouldn’t. On the run from the Men of Letters, Heaven _and_ Hell, he was going to need all the support he could get, and Castiel… Cas was more like family than his family was.

But it wasn’t an obligation to please the angel that had him resting his hand on the crook of Castiel’s arm and tipping back down toward the pillow as the angel bent across him. It was the fact that he wanted this physicality as much as anything; it was because he wanted _Cas_ and it no longer mattered to him what shape that came in. The angel had saved him, and all that time sitting alone in the waiting room, stewing – sober despite the endless beer on tap – had allowed him to dwell on deeper insights.

Maybe in some teenage fantasy it was the shape he’d fallen in lust with, but it was Castiel himself he’d fallen _in love_ with.

It didn’t prevent him from shivering when Cas’ hand moved to Dean's hip. Insecurity lingered despite his remorse and his determination. Angel or not, it was a male body that situated itself above him, warm and broad, a masculine smell underneath the familiar sweet ozone.

“I don’t want you to be afraid of me,” Castiel told him, one knee curled against Dean’s hip, the other settling a little more uncertainly between his thighs. “If it’s too much, I can stop. I’m not even sure what I’m doing...”

“Show me someone who knows what they’re doing,” Dean answered. It probably wasn’t as comforting as it ought to be, but it visibly reassured Cas anyway. He smiled as Dean warbled on: “My whole life has been a series of screw ups laid out like a plan. I think I prefer being spontaneous.”

“Me too,” Cas answered, surprising him, and Dean grinned, lifting his hand to flick his fingers at the tongue of Cas’ tie.

Silence held between them for a moment or two, Dean playing with the end of Castiel’s tie, and Cas staring at him. It felt like it could go on forever. In fact, it quickly occurred to Dean that while he was waiting for Cas to make a move, Castiel was waiting for something else. But why? He’d been so quick to kiss him before…

“What is it?”

“You said that I couldn’t kiss you like this.”

“Cas—“

“I don’t want to kiss you without your permission, Dean. I’m much stronger than you are. I would not wish you to feel like you had no choice in the matter.”

“Cas, it’s fine. I want you to. I changed my mind, okay?”

“You’re certain?”

It was hard to insist that someone do something to him that was already such a big ask, a terrifying thing, and yet in the same breath something he so badly wanted. It took courage to even want it, never mind insist.

“I’m certain. I had a whole lot of time to think sitting in that room. Too long. And honestly… I just needed that; time to figure it out. It was never about what you looked like. I let you touch my soul or whatever, right? What’s a little kiss compared to that?”

If anything, Dean was trying to bolster his own confidence as much as Castiel’s. It wasn’t a big deal, he could take it. And if a kiss wasn’t a big deal then what followed… He could handle what followed too, right?

At the end of the day the alternative: not being with the one person who had always been there for him, considered him first and foremost - even above himself - wasn’t even remotely a possibility. Cas loved him, and it would be worse than another stint in Hell to have to give that up just because of anatomy.

His hand tightened on Castiel’s tie, then his other found a hold higher up the length. As his hands climbed the ladder and took hold at the base of Castiel’s collar, he pulled the angel in toward him as well. It was up to Cas to close the last two inches, though, to press their mouths together and kiss him, long and slow, the same experimental, lengthy, adoring kind of making out that had once left a teenager with a raging boner, scrabbling his way back upstairs to his room and hoping he didn’t meet his father on the way. All those hours and hours they’d spent just kissing: Castiel remembered it all, rubbing their tongues together, angling his jaw further when Dean bent into him, and echoing the soft noises of pleasure that Dean made between quick gasps of fresh air.

The rest of their bodies hardly moved, not for the entire eternity of the kiss. It was only when Dean loosened his grip and flattened his palm against Cas’ chest that he realized, and they broke gently apart.

Castiel was surprisingly, beautifully flush. Between heavy lashed blinks, he angled his body away slightly, and looked down between them. His puzzled expression said it all, and Dean couldn’t help but laugh.

“Feels different to being a girl, right? Don’t worry. It’s normal.”

“When we kissed--?”

“All the time. You drove me crazy. Drive me crazy.” Emboldened by the realization that with similar bodies came similar needs, Dean felt some of the uncertainty flaking away. He knew how Cas felt, because he felt that way too, and that meant that this wasn’t going to be anywhere near as hard as it had been the first time he’d been with a girl. It took the pressure off to know that he could do almost anything and Cas would consider it special. The last thing Dean wanted to do was underwhelm him, but he could tell from Castiel’s reaction to his own erection that the opposite was far more likely.

He caught Castiel’s hand and guided it straight to his own cock, stiff as iron in the pair of jeans that the angels had had him wearing since his capture. To be fair, they were still as fresh as the day he’d put them on, but Dean would still be happy for the chance to change out of them. Or get out of them in general.

“You wanted to touch me,” he told Cas, looking firmly into his eyes. “Now we’re touching.”

“You like this?”

“You tell me.”

Now it was his turn. Swallowing hard, he reached down between them, pushing his hand blindly along Cas’ thigh, before groping between his legs. Underneath the tented wool blend of his pants, through what must be an increasingly claustrophobic layer of underwear, Cas was as hard as Dean was, and Dean stroked along the shape of him. To his great relief, Castiel moaned openly and his head sank down toward Dean’s shoulder like a stone.

“I do like it,” Castiel told him, when Dean had stopped stroking and the angel had managed to catch his breath. 

Dean chuckled again in his ear, a laugh that broke into a stuttering sigh of his own as Castiel, unprompted, practiced what he had learned. It was a method they’d refined almost a decade ago, but this… Oh, this was bringing it up to a whole new level.

As he arched under the touch, Castiel’s mouth found his neck. Firm, blunt teeth filed against his stubble and Dean groaned despite himself, struggling with the novelty of Cas finding his own pace, exploring – for the first time – the possibility of touching him without prompting. If anything, it made it more exciting not to have to guide him through every step, so that Castiel sucking gently on his pulse while the deft fingers of his left hand plucked open his fly, took on a kind of dreamlike catharsis. It was surreal, even more so as inquisitive fingers reached inside and squeezed around the base of his cock.

“Jesus—“

Cas stilled, then lifted his nose an inch, scrunching his eyebrows together. “Pardon? Did I do something wrong?”

“Uh. N-no. No, not wrong.”

“You called me ‘Jesus’. Is there something I should know?”

Now Dean _knew_ he was being teased. He shot the most playfully admonishing glare down at Castiel. “Hey!”

At once, the hand began to move again, this time stroking up and down his cock, fist tenting the fabric at the apex of every pull. Helpless, Dean curled one hand at the back of Cas’ neck, in the collar of his coat. The other reached for his hip, then, on second thought, started pulling at Cas’ tucked in shirt. He had an idea. An idea that was completely suffocating, given he’d much rather be pulling all his own clothes off with the inferno that had kicked off under his skin and the sensitive head of his cock dragging against the inside of his underwear every time Cas ran out of room stroking him.

Still, he wanted Cas naked, at least from the waist up, and his hands went to work achieving just that, although he gave up entirely on the tie when it tightened into a knot three inches away from Cas’ neck. Dean pulled the collar through it, briskly, and shoved the open shirt, jacket, and coat over Castiel’s immense shoulders.

With some concerted effort, he shoved himself up into a seated position, groaning miserably as his actions forced Cas to stop stroking him. But this was going to be worth it. It had to be.

The spellword that John had once used to command Castiel’s wings to open, Dean gave now. At once, black wings – far more beautiful than they had been when Cas had been locked up in the basement, opened behind him. The black feathers had a greenish sheen, like the black in a magpie’s wings, no longer drab and tired from exhaustion and torture. Castiel appeared surprised, tilting his head this way and that to look at them.

“I don’t understand… They were broken.”

Dean squinted at him. “What?”

“Broken. Your father broke them. That’s part of why I couldn’t stay in my former vessel. I thought… I thought that I was only able to fly because I retained my magic.”

Dean raised a hand, not ashamed this time to reach out and touch the arc of wing that rose behind Castiel’s left shoulder. He hunted Castiel’s gaze as the angel puzzled visibly over the mystery. Dean wasn’t sure whether he was supposed to feel relief that he was whole again, or anger that John had broken Castiel’s wings in the first place. He settled for both. In regard to Castiel, his father had a lot to answer for. His treatment of her was shameful, no matter his sentiments about angels.

“They must have healed when I touched your soul,” He said at last, voicing what was perhaps a guess, but sounded reasonably likely either way.

“I’m sorry,” Dean told him, when Castiel was looking back at him. “I’m really sorry, Cas.”

“You needn’t be. You are not responsible for your father’s actions.”

Dean shook his head. “I’m responsible for not stopping them. I was going to set you free a long time ago, remember? You stopped me.”

Castiel touched his face, gently, and a moment later bumped their noses together. His other hand rest on Dean’s shoulder, keeping his balance as he readjusted himself to sit across Dean’s lap. His wings curled in around them, crossing behind Dean’s back loosely, the long flight feathers trailing off to either side of their sticky bodies. Suddenly the hotel bed was too small, the hotel room too hot--not that Dean cared much, or Cas seemed to notice.

“We’re good for each other, Dean. It doesn’t matter the perceived slight. Without you, I would not be here, nor you without me. Isn’t that enough?”

Dean kept shaking his head. He didn’t know. It was too much like some kind of stupid fairytale when Cas said it like that. People like Dean were never the hero in those stories, and the handsome prince never took a dude home to the King and Queen. It was way too lovey dovey; like a Hallmark movie.

“Dean?”

He hadn’t spoken. Maybe he was making Cas nervous. Either way he smiled, and dipped his head so low he almost knocked it right into Cas’ chin.

“It’s okay, I was just thinking.”

“Is it something you’d like to share?”

Dean made a sound ‘no’, then dropped a kiss on Cas’ chin. His hands, which had rest insignificantly on Cas’ hips, rose to his shoulders, then to the crown of his wings, stroking across the smooth feathers. It was a pleasure to touch them freely, and Cas liked it too, his eyelids drooping and his lips parting as Dean explored, letting his thumbnails ease their way beneath the dense surface. 

“I want you to make love to me,” Castiel told him, when his eyes opened again. “I want to last the night with you inside me. I always imagined that you would be inside me.”

Dean bit his own lip so hard that the coppery taste of blood spilled against his tongue. It was that or make some undignified noise at Castiel’s blatant suggestion. Not that Cas jacking him off under his clothes wasn’t already more than suggestive enough. But this was _sex_ , not mutual masturbation. It meant actual fucking, incorporating all its variations of grinding and pounding and thrusting, an unashamed level of intimacy that Dean was still working up to.

“I dunno about lasting the whole night, Cas. I still feel like you hit me with a truck, and it’s your first time. I don’t want you to think it’s all gonna be perfect when it might not.”

“If it’s with you, it’ll be perfect.”

Dean rolled his eyes. “Come on, don’t give me that. If we’re going to be having sex a lot then you… Um.” He blushed, it catching up to him what he’d just implied. This wasn’t just a one time thing. Dean struggled to recover the gist of his own sentence, in the wake of his realization, feeling cloth mouthed. “I just want you to be honest with me about what you like. Or don’t like. Like with the kissing. There’s no point practicing if you’re not gonna tell me what doesn’t work.”

“Like when you bit my tongue?”

Dean grimaced. “That was accidental.”

“None the less, I understand. In that case, I find all these clothes between us to be quite a bother.”

Maybe it was how purely candid the answer was, but it made Dean burst out laughing, and Castiel stared down at him, looking even more confused by the response. They both settled, and Dean smiled, still rubbing his fingers thoughtfully through Castiel’s downy feathers.

“Okay. I guess the clothes are a bit of a bother, huh?”

It shouldn’t have surprised Dean at all that every stitch that they were wearing instantly vanished the moment he gave permission. Still, it was a tiny smidge of a shock either way, and Dean couldn’t help but feel awkward about it, glancing down at his own naked body, at Cas’ bare thighs wrapped around his hips, and his cock, hard as it was, swelling freely now toward his belly.

Dean licked his lips, more self conscious than lascivious. Touching over clothes was one thing, but there was no approaching this from a different angle. It forced him to confront it head on. Maybe it was better that way. 

In at the deep end.

“I didn’t realize yours would look so different,” Castiel told him, prompting Dean to look down at himself again, genuinely concerned that there was something wrong with his dick, before blearily looking the angel right in the face.

“Um.” Sure, there was an answer for that, right? “I um—“

“You’ve been mutilated,” Castiel finished for him.

“Circumcised,” Dean corrected, under his breath. God knew it made him feel self conscious enough without his present and only gay lover and _actual angel_ finding it ugly. It was a tradition of the organization. Not like Dean had ever had a choice in the matter.

“I can heal it.”

Dean shook his head. The topic was making him wilt, and he was having a hard enough time staying focused as it was. He wanted this, wanted Cas, so why did it have to be so complicated? Complicated didn’t make for easy boners. “Can we just… Can we go back to the touching? It’s not a big deal.”

Cas looked hard at him. Maybe he was reading his mind like Sam had, but Dean let it go. He was relieved when Cas wrapped his hand around his cock again. All thought of going soft from nerves went out the window.

“O-okay. Okay, that’s good.” He breathed out, resettling his hands on Cas’ shoulders. As the angel leant forward Dean sank back onto the bed again, and their eyes met with a new kind of softness, so close that Dean was practically nose to nose with him. It felt more intimate, and at the very least the suffocating heat of the room had gone with their layers of clothes. Dean could sweat openly. Cas, he realized, wasn’t visibly as hot at all, past the flush he wore on his cheeks. His hand was ridiculously soft and efficient, thumb circling just underneath the exposed and sensitive head of his cock.

In return Dean let his hands wander over the muscular bow of Castiel’s wings, admiring them openly. It made Cas purr and squeeze his cock, both of which were lovely things.

And then he swore. Again Cas stopped. The interruptions were wearing on both of them now, because Castiel squinted down at him this time, reluctant to move his hand away.

“What is it?”

“It’s—man. I just realised it’s going to be really difficult doing this without lube.”

“Lube?”

“Lubricant. They sell it at the pharmacy? Squeezy bottle? Astroglide?”

“Ah. In that case—“

Castiel vanished, then reappeared in almost exactly the same position, only this time he dumped a shelf full of different lubricant brands on Dean’s naked belly, making Dean jump in fright. It took a moment, but all of a sudden he found himself bursting into giggles, which of course only went to offend the angel more.

“Are these incorrect?”

“N-no!” Dean choked out. He was going to laugh himself to death. “It’s just… It’s just! I’m imagining the clerk’s face when a naked angel with a boner appears in the middle of the store and steals all the lube. Ahaha—oh my God. I can’t— God, Cas…“

Briefly – just for a moment or two – he thought Castiel was going to laugh as well, but instead Cas bent down and silenced Dean from his giggles with a kiss. Dean had to admit that it was the most efficient way to snap him out of it that Cas could have employed, and his ribcage relaxed, just before the laughter got too painful. It didn’t stop him grinning into the kiss as they broke apart again, and he pushed at Cas’ hips instructively.

“Come on. As much as I’d love to watch from this angle, I think this is gonna be easier if you turn around. Grab the headboard.”

Considering Dean had skimped on the part of the instructions that said “Get off me”, there was still a little wrestling involved in maneuvering Cas into the right position. Dean was swiped in the head with one long black wing in the process, but eventually Castiel had his hands on the back rail, wings framing either side of his muscular, naked body, his knees parted shoulder width apart. Dean bumped up behind him, taking advantage of the fact that he could explore Cas’ wings fully with his hands from this position, then – less confidently – he slid his hands down Cas’ back, squeezing his ass, and stroking down the front of his thighs. Said thighs - and the tips of Castiel’s wings – trembled visibly when Dean wrapped his hand around Cas’ cock. He felt more capable now that he wasn’t looking straight at it—and more importantly, now it wasn’t looking straight back at him.

It was so good to make him tremble and tense, muscles snapping as Cas instinctively thrust up toward the curl of his palm, that Dean kept it up for a moment or two, maybe longer than he ought to have. Out of nowhere Cas came like a shaken champagne bottle, surprising both of them. 

Dean didn’t have time to think too hard on his mistake. He caught Cas around the middle before he could topple in either direction, and lowered him gently back into a seated position, practically in his lap. Even so, Cas was repentant when he became aware of what had happened, and the fact that his cock was now quickly softening between his thighs.

“Oh. Oh. D-Dean? Did I…did I do something wrong?”

No, Dean wanted to say. Cas hadn’t done anything wrong, it was Dean who should have considered the fact that Cas probably had the reflexes of a teenager and adjusted for it. Then again, Dean hadn’t been a teenaged boy for almost a decade, and he’d learned years ago how to pace himself depending on how much time there was available. He hadn’t even thought about popping his load spontaneously since he was fifteen years old, and having never had male partners, similar issues had never come up.

Still, there were options now. If Cas could come like that, then his refractory period couldn’t be that bad either, and that meant Dean could get him going again soon enough. It gave him time to prepare him properly, without Cas urging him to cut corners. That and it got the terrifying prospect of dealing with another guy’s spunk out of the way. There was already plenty of it coating Dean’s fingers… And the headboard… And the geometric wallpaper…

Gently, Dean pressed kisses against the back of Cas’ neck, being very gentle with the softening cock in his hand until he could draw his hand lightly away. Cas gasped anyway when Dean let him go, but it didn’t really seem to be pain, just disappointment.

“We didn’t even use the… The um… Astroglide.”

“No, we didn’t, did we? It’s okay. It’s good that happened. It means when I’m inside you you’ll get to enjoy it for longer. Sounds good, right?”

Castiel hesitated. “You haven’t changed your mind?”

“Cas. Didn’t you say you wanted me inside you? I’m gonna give you what you want. Maybe not in the way you always wanted it, but the best I can do.”

“If it’s anything like what you just did, I’m certain I will be more than grateful. Thank you, by the way.”

Dean rolled his eyes. He hadn’t been thanked for an orgasm in his life. And okay, sometimes gratitude was expressed in other ways, but nobody ever outright said it. Even in a male body, Cas was still special in the way he approached human customs, and Dean treasured that about him. 

Dean nuzzled into the back of Cas’ throat, and said nothing else for a moment, until the angel’s breathing returned to a more regular pace. Then, and only then, did he nudge the base of his thumbs against Castiel’s hips.

When he was back in position Cas tried to look back over his shoulder. His wings had drooped in the wake of his orgasm, much of their weight lax against the bed. It gave Dean an unfettered view of his angel’s uncertain expression.

“I’m no longer erect,” Castiel told him, as if Dean hadn’t noticed. “Won’t that be a problem?”

Dean chuckled. This time it didn’t appear to rattle Cas quite as much. “Turning you on again is half of the fun. Don’t worry. Just tell me if I make you uncomfortable, okay?”

There was no risk of that. As Dean wiggled the first finger into him Castiel oozed relief, as though expelling every concern in his body. A moment later Cas was hitching in a breath that was once more interested, though perhaps not yet aroused. Maybe Dean was reading too much into it, it was still just an inhale after all, not a moan or a groan or a whimper, but it seemed like a good sign, especially when - as Dean moved his single digit in and out - Cas clamped his hands tight to the headboard and began to ride back against it. Considering he hadn’t been told what to do, the instinct to move his body in time with Dean’s was auspicious.

Thankfully the process of lubing Cas up was fairly straightforward. It wasn’t like Dean had watched any instructional videos, after all, nor had he ever been tempted to stick a finger up his own ass to try it out. But this… By the time he had three fingers inside, Cas’ forehead was pressed to the headboard, between his hands. His wings were raised all the way forward, arched and swinging like hawk wings in an attempt to keep his balance. Cas’ erection was back too, if not quite fully fledged. That was fine with Dean; it meant there weren’t going to be any more surprise ejaculations quite yet.

Comforting himself that this was simple, that he could do it, do anything he wanted, Dean drew his fingers free, reaching for the abandoned lube on the bed beside him. He had his pick of different flavours, textures – could even pick between silicone, oil and water based products – but he’d chosen one which was described as being particularly good for anal sex. Tingly, supposedly. He wasn’t sure it felt tingly on his cock when he slathered it on, but the way that Cas was crooning even now, empty as he was, suggested that the lube was having an effect on one of them. It turned him on to think that Cas was drowning in pleasure because of something Dean had done. Maybe when this was all over, Cas would still lie there, the electric feeling of the lube inside him long after Dean pulled out.

And that? That was interesting too. It wasn’t like Dean had ever imagined that he would be excited to turn another man on. But this wasn’t a man. This was Castiel. The detail hardly mattered when it was the angel he loved, and the idea of being without him had terrified him when he’d sat in that room alone, contemplating the way that they’d parted.

As it turned out, though, he did find him attractive. Right now, Cas’ body was arousing him, and the idea of this kind of sex didn’t repulse him the way he’d once convinced himself it did. It was what he’d been raised to believe, after all.

But this was instinctive and raw. Dean hardly considered being a ladies-only fellow when he was nudging the tip of his cock against Castiel’s slick hole, burying his nose into the angel’s throat, and wrapping arms around him so he could feel every single muscle and breath as he hitched his hips forward and slid home.

For a moment that was all he did. The overwhelming sensation of heat and pressure around his cock was incredible. Cas was as tight as his fist had been when he’d squeezed down with it, and Dean had to use every trick in the book to keep from coming. He didn’t have the buffer of a fait accompli to prevent him from coming instantly from the friction, as Cas had. But he clamped his teeth so tightly together that his jaw hurt and his fingernails scratched against Castiel’s bare chest. Somehow that took some of the pressure off. Slowly, sweating from every pore, Dean let his head slide down to rest between Cas’ shoulder blades, and when he raised his chin and opened his eyes, he felt a lot more in control.

“You feel amazing,” he told Cas, even though he knew it was no less cheesy than Cas thanking him for his former orgasm.

“As do you,” Cas said. This time his gravelled voice was strained even more, and the choice of single syllable words wasn’t lost on Dean at all.

“You ready for me to move?”

Cas only nodded, and even then it was the slightest little jerk of his chin. Dean didn’t know if he was in pain or trying to stop himself from coming again, but it didn’t matter this time.Cas wanted him to continue and they'd both get there. 

Dean felt like it was harder for him. It could be an illusion: after all he was exhausted from giving up part of his soul to heal Cas, and the angel probably wouldn’t sweat if he was roasted like a marshmallow. Even now, Cas’ skin was pristine and though he shook and moaned with every slow thrust, responding so beautifully that the sounds just about broke Dean’s heart, not even a drip slithered down his gorgeous spine. Dean, on the other hand, felt drenched, every muscle aching. But there was something vibrant and welcome about it being less than easy. He wanted it to be good, and good sex was never easy.

After a few moments, they fit each other better, or maybe Dean became less concerned that he was hurting Cas. It helped that Castiel said “faster, please”, at the exact moment Dean, too, wanted to move faster. They were in tune with each other. 

He found a fresh grip, one hand holding tight to the shoulder of Castiel’s wing, and the other moving underneath and across, so that his hand fell next to Cas’, the full length of their arms touching. In the new position, Dean could move more briskly, rolling his hips in an undulating rhythm that had Cas crooning and pushing back against him. His wings rose and fell with just the movement of their bodies, and Dean drowned himself in the whole experience, kissing at Castiel’s jaw and sucking on his neck like a teenager—not that it mattered, because the bruises he made were gone a moment later.

But that was okay, because Castiel didn’t disappoint. His orgasm, with Dean’s nose pressed almost to his ear, was louder than the first, and stunning. This time both of them got to experience it completely, Dean with Castiel’s muscles clenching tight against him, and Castiel, completely present within Dean’s arms, aware of himself and what was happening as he spilled, untouched, over his belly, the headboard, and the already ruined pillows. 

"So good," Dean murmured against his ear and kept moving, determined to reach his own orgasm now, wanting desperately to just puddle on the bed and spoon with Cas as delirium gripped them both.

Castiel wasn’t having any of it. The moment he got his wits about him, he twisted free, remarkably deft for someone who’d just blown their load for the second time in ten minutes. The next thing Dean knew, one wing had knocked him flat on his back, and Cas was climbing up over him, lifting his great foliage of feathers above him to block out most of the light, and sinking back down on his cock with a kind of fluid determination.

This time blue eyes fixed right on Dean, close enough for Dean to feel every single breath, but not so close that he couldn’t focus on the intense heavenly gaze above him. Cas bore down with his hips, bucked and plummeted. With just a few minutes of experience, he’d already worked out that if he squeezed as he lifted his hips, he could tug roughly on Dean’s cock and elicit a moan from him every single time. The angel appeared to enjoy it when Dean made noises, so consequently it was every thrust that tugged, and Dean was losing his mind before he could help himself, panting and writhing on the bed, twisting his head backward and getting – just for a moment – sharp teeth at his throat for his efforts.

It was obvious that Castiel wanted to watch, and when Dean eventually came, he had no idea what the angel saw; no idea how flushed he was, or if there was something about his soul, or…

No matter how it looked, it was clearly good for Cas too. He halted at the top of the stroke, visibly struggling to keep his eyes open to watch. Cas’ next breath came as a kind of subtly confused whimper, twitching hips drawing Dean’s orgasm out until his cock felt raw and spent inside him.

But did Cas get off? Did he, Hell. He sank down with focus, squeezed ruthlessly around Dean’s softening cock, and wrapped him up in his wings like they were inside a feather cocoon. Despite the suffocating intensity of heat, the enclosure came with a comfort such as Dean had never known. Cas buried his face in Dean’s neck as though that was the end of it.

“Cas?” Dean tried when he thought he could manage whole syllables again.

“Dean. Mmm…” It seemed like it was hard for Cas to lift his head, but Dean wasn’t completely fooled. He knew angels didn’t sleep and Cas was just contented from his new experience. 

Nonetheless, their noses bumped together, and Dean sighed. He didn’t want out of this situation at all, but it came down to him to be the voice of reason.

“Not for nothing, but if we stay like this we’re going to stick together like glue.”

Cas kept rubbing his nose against him, showing no sign that he intended to pull away. At last the angel said “No, we won’t. When it’s time, I will ensure we part amicably.”

Dean had no idea what that meant, but he believed Cas anyway. “You were serious about wanting me inside you all night, huh?”

Cas made an affirmative noise, nuzzling closer again, and this time Dean’s sigh was an elaborate pretense.

“Just so long as Sammy doesn’t walk in and see us wrapped up like this, okay? I don’t think there’s much left in the world that can scar him for life, but the sex butterfly thing is probably—“

That made Cas pause in his determination to rub an impression of his face into Dean’s neck. Pausing, he lifted blue eyes to look up at Dean again.

“Sex butterfly?”

Dean managed the slightest shrug of a shoulder. God, he was still sweating fiercely, even though they’d stopped moving. The chill of the hotel room was completely forgotten, and at least one of the scattered tubes of lube was jabbing into the side he was stretched out on.

“Nevermind,” he said. “You were amazing, Cas.”

“And it’s okay? That I wasn’t… That I wasn’t in a female body? You were comfortable?”

Dean sighed again. He knotted his hand in Cas’ hair – the other was pasted to his side by one wing – and stared right into his blue eyes. “You wanted me inside you, right? Well it turns out all I want to be inside is who _you’re_ inside. _You,_ Cas. I don’t want you to worry about it ever again, okay? The part of me that freaked out back then? He was an idiot, and he’s learned his lesson. Just… Just don’t leave me. Whatever happens, whoever we have to fight, even if it’s my Dad, or Sam, or the Devil—I want you right by my side. My angel. You got that?”

Castiel was silent. It was a long pause, but Dean could see that Cas was processing it, because with their noses inches from each other there was nowhere at all to hide.

“Your angel?” he finally asked.

Dean smiled, stroking his thumb just underneath Cas’ eye. “ _When you fell from Heaven, I fell for you_ , remember? Seems only fair it goes both ways.”

\-----

The End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are, then! Thank you for reading all the way to the end! If you spotted anything that I really ought to have tagged please send me a message to let me know, and if you enjoyed my writing please do follow me here or on Tumblr (thedogsled.tumblr.com) for more in the future, or check out my WIP "Road to Kashmir".
> 
> And please don't forget to give love to my artist Diminuel (diminuel.tumblr.com) as well! Remember, comments are love, and we adore hearing from all of you!


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